Summary
This competition series will have you hooked and get your mind working to find that devious mole.
This review of the Netflix reality competition series The Mole (2022) season 1 does not contain spoilers.
Alex Wagner hosts this intense, extreme, and adventurous game, where nothing is ever what it seems. With a jackpot that only one can win, this is a series with a lot of heat, tension, and drama. In this competition series, we watch as twelve contestants embark on an adventure down under, in Australia, who work together in challenges to add money to a pot that only one of them will win at the end. Among the players is one person who has secretly been designated “the Mole” and tasked with sabotaging the group’s money-making efforts. After ten episodes, in the end, one player will outlast their competition and expose the Mole to win the prize pot.
This series is the new version of the former ABC series of the same name, which ran for five seasons between 2001 and 2009. Like the original American version, the Netflix version is based on the Belgian format “De Mol” created by Bart De Pauw, Michel Vanhove, Michiel Devlieger, and Tom Lenaerts and distributed by Primitives. Will this one pack the same punch and win audiences over? For me, yes it does and I can’t wait for another series.
To me, this is like Fort Boyard meets I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, meets The Circle, and I think it’s a great show. Not something I’ll be applying for, but something I can easily watch and enjoy. It’s entertaining to watch strangers having to work as a group, putting all their skills to the test. They’re being challenged mentally and physically. The mole, especially, has the task of convincing/manipulating people, whilst trying to play a good game at wanting to win. The first episode opens by asking each contestant if they’re the mole, did you guess? I certainly didn’t. This is a fun aspect of the show, not only is each contestant paranoid and investigative into who the mole is, but the viewers are also.
The contestants vary from professional gamers and pilots to focus group moderators, so there is an arrangement of different skill sets to help build a giant pot of money. This is a battle of wits, ego, and trusting everyone and trusting no one. Their missions are hardcore, they are on one extreme, fantastical adventure here, and it’s not for the faint-hearted.
Even the futuristic headquarters had me intrigued. There are some great locations they’ve filmed here, from the world’s oldest rainforest to an island paradise, it’s not all bad and hard work.
One little thing I really liked was the Mocking Jay-style music when someone is eliminated at the end of each episode. (By doing a quiz, and the person who gets the least amount of answers right about who the mole is is eliminated) I love little quirky things like this in a series. Completely hooked, I enjoyed watching each contestant grow, develop, and fail, and I had no idea who the mole was and was shocked by the ending. I highly recommend watching.
What did you think of the Netflix series The Mole (2022) season 1? Comment below.
