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Feel free to contribute.
As always, review submissions are
accepted!
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Sidebar
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"What's with the
Fingerprint...?" This
series continues to have a large fingerprint as its icon for the show. I
suppose it's meant as some sort of spy type of intrigue added to the show,
and yet, it still seems out of place, particularly this season. The
challenges this season, so far, are extremely non-spy oriented, and, yes,
actually seem more than a bit ripped off from Survivor,
not that I blame them. However, with competitions this season including
non-spy activities like attempting to push someone off a log into the water
below, I'd say the series needs a new icon. On the other hand, regardless of
less "spy" themed challenges, the spy music is still pretty
cool...
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The Mole 2:
The Next Betrayal
Well, if CBS dared to bring back Big
Brother, why shouldn't ABC bring back The Mole?
This is by far a much more intriguing premise than a bunch of losers stuck
in a house. Instead, this is a game where the locations are the best part
of the show, as the players compete in some of the most intriguing vistas
across the globe. Again, it's quite understandable that ABC would bring it
back for a second season, or even more (commercials are already asking for
applications to join Mole-3).
The premise is simple enough; within a team
of players, there is a "mole," who seems to be a team player,
yet is actually a "double agent" out to make sure they lose.
Sounds a lot like the first two seasons of Survivor, doesn't it? The trick
here is, this time such a cheater within the group cannot run off with the
grand prize; the winner is the player who succeeds in defeating The Mole
at their own game. This is no easy task, when the end of each episode has
a quiz, asking players for clues they (hopefully) noticed about the
possible Mole. If they get too many questions wrong, they are the Mole's
next victim, and they're out of the game!
There are definitely some nice innovations
to this game idea, that are admittedly wiser than Survivor. For one, the
environment always changes, so there is little chance of getting bored
watching the exact same beach or desert every week. Second, the player ousted
each week is the player who lost "fair and square," with little
chance at cheater's alliances forcing them to leave sooner than they
deserve. Best of all, unlike Survivor, the biggest, most conniving cheater
on the game is hired by the show itself --i.e., the "mole"-- and
by the rules, cannot win the game. How cool would Survivor be, if the
"mole"-like Tina had to surrender her winnings to a fairer
player, like Elisabeth? If only...
Discerning who the Mole is does not
complete the list of game tasks, however. Players must make sure The Mole
cannot interfere with them winning their prize money for that week. This
is a challenge, when this is exactly what the Mole is there to do. Keeping
tabs on the mole is made harder, by the show always taunting individual
players to back-stab teammates, for personal gain. In the second episode,
for example, two players were granted immunity that week (i.e.; their low
score on the weekly quiz would not get them booted from the show,
no matter what). They only had to trick two other players into leaving
their hotel rooms at night; a game rule violation. They succeeded, though
don't think this points a finger at The Mole. After all, would such a Mole
be one of the players who agreed to the immunity challenge, or one of the
other players, who so willingly and unquestionably left their rooms when
they knew it was against the game's rules? Either way, it doesn't matter;
the team as a whole was punished for hundreds of dollars from the show's
total prize money so far (which increases as the show goes on, based on
team performance), and somewhere, the Mole won the day.
The end result is a show that, admittedly,
would not compete well opposite a ratings grabber like Survivor, on a
night like Thursday. However, the show is currently on Friday, which is a
major scheduling coup. Fridays for years have been filled with total so-so
nothingness on the network channels; now, there's at least a show that is
worth a look. Since I have been forced to watch little to no TV on most
Friday nights in recent years, the fact that I finally have a show to
watch that night is a very good thing...for me, as well as ABC.
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