Unearthing The Mole (Mole, The)

Member Name: carolinesite

Product:	Mole, The
Date:	18/01/01 (155 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An interesting show that will have you thinking as to who the mole is.

Disadvantages: Time spent on each game could be longer as some are very interesting and amusing to watch.

Friday 8 PM.

This is the new game show from Channel 5, which runs for 9 weeks.
Adverts for the programme, launched last week, looked very interesting, but made me feel slightly wary.
Another program jumping on the Big Brother bandwagon? Another pathetic idea like The Island? A total waste of time like Jailbreak?

We shall have to see.

The basic idea is that 10 contestants (5 men and 5 women), are given challenges which will earn the team money. This money is built up every week and could total £200,000 by the last episode. There is one problem though.
One of them is The Mole.
A contestant planted by channel 5 to sabotage their challenge and prevent them from winning any money.

But who is it?

This is also what the contestants have to try and find out, and at the end of each episode they have to fill in a questionnaire about 'The Mole', and the contestant furthest away from the truth is eliminated.

I found the first programme very exciting and enjoyable. so I am looking forward to this weeks episode.

The 10 contestants are:
Sara Lee
Zi Khan
Oliver Norman
David Buxton
Jennifer Waller
Paul Wallace-Sims (eliminated)
Jo-Anna Corlett (eliminated)
Julie Woolstan (eliminated)
Gloria Barnard (eliminated)
John Church (eliminated)

One of these is 'The Mole'.

The challenges are also very exciting and gave me mixed feelings.
When they first arrived at the airport on Jersey, they were taken for a tandem sky-dive. That's where you jump from a plane strapped to an experienced sky-diver.
The money up for grabs was £10,000, but all contestants had to jump from the plane in order for the team to win the money.
Would they all do it? I know I couldn't, and Gloria nearly didn't either. I felt for her. The pressure was immense. Or was she 'The Mole'?
After a while she finally jumped. In fact,
they all jumped successfully and they won the money.

The next challenge was fun. 5 of the contestants were taken back to the airport, and had to re-pack their cases. They had to leave out anything they thought would be unnecessary and re-pack it into ruck sacks.
Then they had to re-pack the other 5 contestants cases!
The other 5 were then brought to the airport and informed of what the other 5 had done.
To win £5,000, 3 out of 5 of them had to guess correctly an item that was not re-packed.
The first 3 failed. No money that time but poor Zi was left without any pants for the duration!

The next challenge left me questioning their intelligence.
Zi was taken blind folded to a mystery location, and the others had to find him.
3 went by helicopter, 3 by boat and the other 3 by car. They each had a mobile phone and were told that there are 3 numbers on the phone. 2 of the numbers were obviously for the other 2 teams, but whose was the 3rd?
It took them a while to find out it was Zi's.
And when they spoke to Zi what could he tell them?
"I'm by the sea"
Duh! Jersey is 9 miles by 4 miles and is surrounded by sea!
I felt he could have told them what was inside his 'prison' to give them a clue as to where he might be.
They did find him in the end, and won the money (£10,000). This was later taken away from them because they did not stay within the law. The car driver, Jennifer, drove up a one way street.
Is she 'The Mole'?
She might be, but she was egged on by another team member to do it, and also waved up the road by yet another team member!
Also, before they set off, John disappeared to 'make a phone call to a friend' he said.
He claimed his friend told him to search the west of the Island, which incidentally was in the opposite direction.
Could he be the mole?
We now know that Julie is not 'The Mole' because she was the f
irst to be eliminated.
Who will be next?
Who do you think is 'The Mole'?

Channel 5 have more information on this programme on their website.
Made with Flash 5.0, it is really professional looking.
Here you can get the profiles of each contestant, find out what it's all about and also vote as to who you think 'The Mole' is in their poll.
It also gives you clues, chat and a message board.
The navigation is a little confusing because it has the rollover buttons, so no text appears until you put the mouse over the buttons.

http://www.channel5.co.uk/themole

Although I have voted for Zi as being 'The Mole' on the site because of his lack of information to the team as to where he was, I am starting to question John's phone call to his 'friend'.

As I said before, we shall see but I do think this is rather different from other similar ideas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was not disappointed by the second episode either. It was still as enjoyable as the first, so I think I will now be a regular viewer. It isn't just me either. My boyfriend dashed home from work just in time as it was starting, and my 9 year old has been looking forward to it all week. He loves challenge programmes and is a great fan of The Crystal Maze.

So what happened this week?
Gloria didn't show up for any challenges, claiming she was unwell. True or an act of sabotage?

None of the challenges were as exciting as the tandem sky-dive, done in the first week, but still very interesting.
The first challenge was worth £5,000. Pairing up, the team had to raise a total of £150 for a local children's charity in Jersey (£50 each pair). One pair had to give donkey rides, another pair had to draw cartoon pictures of people and the other pair had to put on a Punch & Judy show.
They completed the challenge with flying colours, collectin
g over £200 in total.
Good old Channel 5 doubled it for the kids.
I didn't really spot anything out of the ordinary from these 6, so maybe none of them is 'The Mole'.

You are probably wondering what the 4th pair were doing. They were chosen as the the best and the worst golfer of the team, and the best had to teach the worst how to play!
This was to be part of the second challenge.
Sara,(the worst golfer) had 4 free shots from the 18th hole. For any more free shots the rest of team were asked questions. If they were correct, Sara got a free shot. They did not do very well. Neither did Sara. Either she is a very bad golfer or she just panicked on her final putt. Or is she 'The Mole'?
They did not win any money.

The final challenge had them in groups of 3 (Zi was chosen to participate for 2 groups because there was no Gloria).
3 rally cars had to be driven around a circuit with a driver and a navigator, then had to have it's rear wheels swapped over by the 3rd group member.
There was a time limit and they failed by 3 minutes.
Why? Jo-Anna was struggling terribly with her wheel change, was she sabotaging the teams challenge? And Zi, although completed his first wheel change very well, he complained of wrench trouble during his second. Was it really the wrench at fault or is Zi 'The Mole'?

The elimination was a bit disappointing. Was Gloria really eliminated because she was furthest from the truth as to who the Mole is, or had her first challenge taken it's toll on her and she just wanted out?

I think it is even stevens between Zi and John. One of them is 'The Mole'.

Tune in next week to find out who is next to be eliminated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week, the opening challenge was very poor. It was at this point I thought the whole show was about to take a nose-dive.
They all left the Je
rsey shores in a motor launch, which took them to Northern France.

3 went off to learn about Goat's cheese, 3 learnt about French wine, and the other 2 learnt about French cooking.
The challenge was that the cheese tasters had to eliminate one of the cheeses that they had not tasted that day. The wine tasters had to do the same with the wine. The cooks had to place the ingredients in order that they were cooked in.
They failed.

The second challenge took them to a very high bridge. They all had to jump from the bridge and swing from a rope.
Not such an exciting challenge as the sky-dive, but entertaining nonetheless. They all jumped successfully.
Maybe a bungee jump would have produced a yellow belly, and produce 'The Mole'?

The 3rd challenge was interesting. They made a giant maze shaped like a thumb print.
The group had to pair up, and one had to guide the other through the maze in the dark.
Inside the maze, channel 5 had planted 2 people whom had to catch the contestants before they found the exit, so it wasn't that easy.
They succeeded.
They now have a total of £50,000 in their bank.

Paul was eliminated this week, which surprised the others, as he was their suspect as to whom 'The Mole' is.

There were no real blatant clues this week as to who 'The Mole' might be, but I still stand by my first predictions of Zi and John.
John seems the most obvious, but Zi is either so stupid, or an excellent actor and is 'The Mole'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week was the best, and funniest episode by far. It is also the week that my hot favourite is eliminated!

Of the 7 remaining, 2 were selected to go off to a remote Jersey island, and had to erect a shelter for 5 people. Can you tell what is coming?
They had 3 hours to complete this task, using pieces of wood, plastic sheeting, string and rocks.


The other 5 were split into groups of 2 and 3. 2 had to go fishing for crabs and lobsters, and the other 3 went deep sea fishing for mackerel.
Of these 3 was Zi, he was so funny. At first he would not take the fish off the hook, but after making everyone laugh, he ended up taking the hooks out of the other two's fish as well, because they refused to touch them!
Between the 5, they had to have a total catch of 7kgs, in order to win £5,000, which they did.

You all know where the next challenge is taking them. Yes, these 5 now have to spend the night on the island, inside the shelter that the first 2 had constructed. And guess what they had to eat? You got it, the fish that they had caught.
They completed that successfully and earned themselves £10,000.

As I said, my hot favourite, John, was sadly eliminated. I guess I will have to stick with Zi, but I am beginning to have thoughts about Oliver (not those kind of thoughts!).
It was he and John that had to build the shelter, and neither of them seemed to be in any hurry to complete it, so as John has now gone, maybe it is Oliver?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sparks flew this week as temperatures were raised! The best week so far.

With 6 remaining, the first challenge had them in 2 groups of 3. In turn each group had to follow a path through the underground bunkers on Jersey, solving 3 puzzles in a time limit. Both teams had to complete the puzzles in the given time to win £5,000.
The first team completed theirs in record time. The other team timed out, so no money was won.

They then had a game of blackjack. The first winner won 5 free correct questions in the eliminator, then next, 4 and so on. Sara had none.
The 5 that won free questions were then taken to play another challenge. They had to correctly identify friends and family of the other team members for £5,000. They failed.

The
final challenge is where things got heated up. Sara was held hostage and the remaining 5 had to rescue her. They were on a paint ball range and had to avoid being hit. The object was that at least one of them had to bring Sara back to base alive.
Unknown to them, Sara was given a decision. If she shot the person that rescued her safely it would ensure her a place in the next round.
This challenge was fun to watch and it was Zi that successfully dragged her back to base and virtually threw her over the line. Then she shot him!
When the others were told about Sara's free pass, they were disgusted. Zi was in a flaming mood and Jo-Anna was cursing her.

Is Sara 'The Mole'? I really don't think so. It was too much of a blatant act, or is that what Channel 5 want us to think?
We shall see how they act towards Sara next week.

Summary: