The Mole

I'm sorry, I'm not usually an overly critical type of person but I just have to write something scathing about the new series of "The Mole" which started last Thursday night. Now anyone who knows me well, knows how much I loved the previous 4 series. Some may also remember that my favourite contestant was Beverley in the first series. Now Bev was a 60something old biddy who was hilarious and kept stuffing up the challenges bigtime, which made everyone consider her to be the perfect Mole. Alas, poor ol' Bev was not the Mole and she got eliminated half way through the series.

And who can forget the last series when Petrina (who was the Mole) got herself deliberately eliminated off the show, as a tactical manouvre to rid herself of suspicion. Of course, it was probably the producers' idea for her to kick herself off, but I thought it was brilliant. They got her back on the show (another twist ooooh) by letting her pay her way back in by taking money out of the winner's kitty. As you can imagine this did not endear herself at all to the other players. Sucked in to them :)

Well back to my criticisms, because they have changed the format of the show for 2005. They now have the annoyingly ubiquitious Tom Williams as the host and he just sucks at it massively. The actor Grant Bowler was the previous host of the first 4 series - he was terrific, he really got into the role as the host. He had this sinister air about him, really quite "espionagey" and threatening. But he also knew when to be funny, and warm to the contestants. Grant was bloody sexy as well :) He was my "Channel 7 boyfriend" before Keifer Sutherland in "24" *laugh*

So now we have Mr Chippie, who can't string 2 words together without laughing as he did on the first show. He made mistakes! And giggled! And wore a bad pink/purple shirt!

They have also "devised" a Survivor-esque elimation segment, which is recorded live in Martin Place. Bad idea. Bad idea. Tom tried to create some drama by asking the contestants some "probing" questions about each other, in an effort to get them to bitch and whinge. The contestants answers came off as pathetic. Don't they know they need the footage edited carefully to create the drama???? You need to cut in quick, sly looks, sighs, rolling eyes........it's near impossible to capture and switch to those moments live....

So, the live aspect definitely needs some fine-tuning! When Josh, the rock singer, got eliminated, they did his interview in a foyer in Martin Place. He was still talking when they shoved him onto the street! It was hilarious! You could still hear him talking when they cut back to McChippie

On the plus side, is that one of my assistant editors is now on the show. Nat quit working with us a few months ago, after finding out she had been cast as one of the 12 contestants on The Mole. It was fun watching her the other night, interesting to see how she has been portrayed. Nat wasn't that featured in the first episode (Heidi the "Socialite" and Liz the "former pro surfer" got the most airtime), but it was cool to see her big laugh and I think we got one great sarcastic comment from her when Liz stupidly asked "Is a snow-cave like a house?". Nat threw back "No babe, it's a CAVE. Made out of snow" and rolled her eyes. I'm hoping we get more fantastic Nat moments like that....

Anyway, even though this new series of The Mole is looking pretty dismal, I will still be watching every Thursday night :)