Who is The Mole?
A history of the hit reality phenomenon
In October 2022, The Mole returned for its sixth season after being off the air for the past 14 years. The show is the American adaptation of the Flemish shown known as De Mol, which originally aired on Belgian Broadcaster TV1 (later Eén) between December 1998 and March 2000.
The Mole premiered on ABC on January 9, 2001 and was hosted by Anderson Cooper, who was a journalist that was working for ABC News at the time the show aired. In every season, ten to twelve contestants have to complete a series of tasks (known as “missions”) as a group in order to add money to the show’s final prize pot. The tasks consist of a wide variety of physical and mental challenges, most of which have difficult rules. Of the contestants who are present in every season, one of them has secretly been designated as “The Mole”, a person whose role is to sabotage the efforts of the other contestants and prevent them from adding money to the pot. At the end of each task, the contestants are required to take a test consisting of multiple choice questions about the mole’s identity and their observations. The contestant who has the lowest score on the test is eliminated from the competition, and this process continues until three contestants remain. If a tie occurs for the lowest score on the test between two or more contestants, the contestants who complete the quiz in the shortest time advance to the next mission.
Once three contestants remain, a final quiz is conducted regarding the mole’s identity and their observations in the missions that took place over the course of the entire season. The contestant who has the most correct answers on the quiz and correctly predicts who the mole is wins the entire prize pot. The mole is always safe from elimination and is involved in the game until the very end, although the mole cannot win.
The first season, which was hosted by Anderson Cooper, saw 10 contestants compete over nine episodes. The season was filmed in the early fall of 2000 and was broadcast on ABC from January 9, 2001 to February 28, 2001. The ten contestants started on the Californian side of the Mojave Desert and traveled to France and Spain to complete a total of 18 missions. Of the three players who remained, law school professor Kathryn Price was revealed to be the mole, while police officer Steven Cowles defeated lawyer Jim Morrison in the final quiz and correctly predicted the mole to win $510,000.
The show’s ratings in its first season were good enough for it to be renewed for a second season, which premiered in late September 2001 and aired for 3 episodes before being placed on hiatus because of low ratings that were caused by the effects surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11th. The remaining episodes of the season aired starting on June 4, 2002, and the final episode would air on July 30. An expanded cast of 14 contestants, including former admiral William McDaniel, competed a total of 30 missions in Switzerland and Italy. The three contestants remaining were McDaniel and two other women: musician Dorothy Hui and public relation manager Heather Campbell. In the finale that was taped in October 2001, shortly after the season went on hiatus, McDaniel was revealed to be the mole, and Hui won the cash prize of $636,000 for having the highest score on the quiz. Despite higher than expected ratings for the remaining episodes of the season, the show decided to try a celebrity format for its third season. Anderson Cooper left ABC News for CNN in the wake of the attacks and was replaced by Ahmad Rashad.
The third season, which was filmed in Hawaii with a cast consisting entirety of celebrities in an attempt to improve the show’s ratings, ran for six episodes between January 8 and February 12, 2003 and saw comedian Kathy Griffin unmask fashion model Frederique van der Wal to win $233,000 after the team completed six out of nine missions successfully. Due to higher than expected ratings, a fourth season was commissioned by ABC under the same format. The season, which was filmed in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, aired from January 7 to February 8, 2004 and saw NBA forward Dennis Rodman defeat actor Mark Curry to win $222,000, unmasking actress Angela Everhart in the process after ten successful missions out of sixteen.
Following the end of the fourth season, ABC and Stone Stanley Entertainment put The Mole on an indefinite hiatus because of a slight decline in viewership, and the production company was unable to find a new network for the show. However, the 2007 Writers’ Guild of America strike prompted ABC and Stone & Co. to announce the show’s return to American television for a fifth season that would be hosted by Jon Kelley.
The fifth season, which was filmed as a result of the strike, saw 12 contestants complete missions as a team in Chile and Argentina. The season ran for 11 episodes from June 2 to August 11, 2008. Of the 18 missions that were completed, 15 were successful, and the three final contestants remaining were graphic designer turned independent film actor Craig Slike, high school history teacher Mark Lambrecht, and gynecology specialist Nicole Williams. In the final quiz, Lambrecht defeated Williams 17–14 to win $420,000, and Slike was revealed to be the mole. Following the conclusion of this season, Kelley stepped away from television for a while before he began to host a syndicated revival of the 1968 daytime game show Funny You Should Ask, which premiered in September 2017 and is produced by Entertainment Studios, a company run by black comedian Byron Allen.
In April 2009, ABC announced the cancellation of The Mole after five seasons because of low ratings. Following the announcement, numerous petitions were created to allow another network to bring back the series for a sixth season, but these petitions failed despite having millions of signatures. It was thought that The Mole would come to an end in the United States, but the cancellation of numerous scripted shows by Netflix resulted in an opening.
In May 2021, following the cancellation of highly-rated scripted programs like Glow and I Am Not Okay with This as a result of financial challenges brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic, an article was posted by BuzzerBlog about a potential sixth season of The Mole (originally known as The Insider) that would be filmed in the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales between June and August of that year. Netflix later added seasons 1 and 2 of the show to its streaming service in the United States during that time, prompting speculation that a new season would premiere soon. However, the announcement regarding the new season would not come until September 2022, when Netflix officially announced the return of The Mole for its sixth season, which would consist of ten episodes that would be hosted by MSNBC journalist Alex Wagner. The sixth season would comprise of twelve contestants, of which five were the main stars of the season: esports athlete and former beauty pageant contestant Avori Henderson, firefighter and paramedic Jacob E. Hacker, airline pilot Joi Schweitzer (who herself is a former fighter jet pilot), software developer Kesi Neblett, and lifestyle public relations representative William James Richardson. Eight episodes of the show would air between October 7 and October 14, with the final two episodes airing on October 21.
In the first episode of the finale, Hacker and Henderson were removed in that order for finishing last in the eighth and ninth quizzes, leaving only Neblett, Richardson and Schweitzer as the final 3 contestants. The final reunion, which only lasted eight minutes compared to previous seasons, saw Neblett revealed as the mole. Richardson was declared the winner of the six season for correctly predicting the mole in the final quiz, taking home a payout of $101,500, the lowest final pot in the show’s history.