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The Mole is revealed -finally!

The Mole finally drew to a close last night when a whopping $180,000 was given away in the off-Broadway times of 11:45pm.

Final 3 with host Shura TaftSeven’s seemingly unending reality contest The Mole finally drew to a close last night when a whopping $180,000 was given away in the off-Broadway times of 11:45pm.

That’s because the low-rating show didn’t start until 10:30pm.

The money was won by Hillal, 22, from Sydney, who managed to avoid being beaten by the Mole, and in the final quiz gave 36 correct answers out of 40 questions identifying Erin as the Mole (pictured, right).

“It was a big challenge and at first I didn’t really think I had it in me to play the game as the Mole,” said Erin, 24, from Geelong. “I must admit, I did have more than a few guilty moments when the series was close to finishing, particularly when it came to Aisha because of the friendship we built up. I didn’t think I would make any friends to be honest, and I had to work hard to manipulate them!”

She also came to blowing her cover was when she paid $15,000 for an exemption early on in the series.

“When I took the exemption I just said I was playing the game but it was a very risky strategy. I was happy to fuel the fire that they all thought Alex was the Mole. But I then became worried that people would guess that I was the Mole!”

Aisha scored 31 out of 40.

The Mole marks a rare misstep by Seven this year, especially after so many readers had been excited for the show’s return. But many criticised the amount of episodes, the lack of weekly eliminations and the timeslot originally given to the show.

Giving away that kind of money with such a small audience puts the show up there with such flops as Excess Baggage ($100,000), homeMADE ($100,000),  Top Design ($100,000) and Australia’s Perfect Couple($210,000).

22 Responses

  1. Good show, just produced really poorly. Stuck it out and was satisfied with the results, but still disappointed that this show could have been so much better.

  2. Walt: Can’t make that promise sorry. Everything is judged on a case by case basis. When it’s a big show I nearly always run it in the headline, along with the rest of the media. This one was off-Broadway.

  3. I agree with @mellowman about the reveal, it should have been much more exciting – however the same could be said for the whole series which was clearly over-stretched (like many it seems though, I stuck with it to the bitter end!).

    On a side note thank you TV Tonight for not pasting either the Mole’s identity of the winner’s name in your post header so it doesn’t reveal potential spoilers when it appears in feeds or on Twitter (but is still available to those that choose to click through). I hope this is a style you will consider continuing for future posts.

  4. @mellowman

    Fremantle should’ve thought up a better way to play that out, but the leak out of the production was that the reveal was meant to be live presumably with all cast back, but due to the show failing it was pre-recorded instead with only the final 3.

    Whilst I watched the season through I thought the show was poor, too many freebie challenges, too many non-elimination shows and Erin was too easy to spot partly due to the cast and partly due to the sheer length. There were more hints in the opening titles – Hillal winking when Shura says winner, Erin’s background being the only one that isn’t a crowd scene.

    Was also disappointed they didn’t reveal whether Erin yanked out the audio jack in the plane challenge as “screaming so loud it knocked out audio” seemed convenient, also didn’t account for the missing pot money – think it was always in the room, just not…

  5. I just watched the finale then, and am sad it’s all over. I loved this season even though it was drawn out I was never bored. I did think the reveal at the end was poorly done, no suspense.

    I hope it does make a return in the future but it’s probably unlikely now unfortunately.

  6. I enjoyed it, and I think a second revamped series could be successful with a few changes:
    1. Get a host that people actually know instead of a nobody. Shura did a great job, but I feel a well known personality would have increased the audience.
    2. Have a wider spread of contestants in terms of age. Seasons in the past have had older contestants who have turned out to be lots of fun (Bev in Series 1, Kris in Series 4). This season the oldest contestant was 42 with half the contestants being 21-24, which possibly alienated the older demographic. I believe a few more older contestants would have made it more of a team game, instead of having everyone compete with each other so hard.
    3. Reduce or eliminate all the freebies, exemptions, secret questions etc. It stops them playing as a team and turns them into selfish people.
    4. Go back to the old format of having one episode a week…

  7. Great cast and awesome show terribly handled by Fremantle. I stuck with it to the end but wish it had been strewmlined. Some of the games were too convoluted, too. I really hope (but don’t expect) a revamped second season gets made coz done right, it’s one of the all time best reality game shows.

  8. “Giving away that kind of money with such a small audience puts the show up there with such flops as Excess Baggage ($100,000), homeMADE ($100,000), Top Design ($100,000) and Australia’s Perfect Couple($210,000).”

    And I think the Hothouse, with no viewers, gave away the $1m house to the winner

  9. Was really looking forward to this after watching all the previous series. Loved Shura in it. Glad they showed the clues, like the creds, blue and white and Erin being in Katherine.

    But the shower really needed to have 1 elimination per show. Hope there is a 2nd season.

    Did have a happy dance moment when Erin replied on twitter this morning.

  10. A terrible end to a terrible series. This was one of the most anti-climatic finales ever. At the end the contestants stand in a row and Shura asked the mole to step forward. Are you kidding me? What happened to the suspense of series 1 when they were all locked in jail cells or series 2 when they were locked in train carriages. Production staff at Fremantle Media should watch old series of The Mole on Youtube to see how The Mole should be made.

  11. For me The Mole has been one of this year’s “must see” TV shows. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every episode.

    It’s a shame Ch 7 have not been so kind to it. The scheduling was erratic, and it really needed a consistent slot and run time.

    Plus, Hillal was very easy on the eye… 😛

  12. I actually picked Erin as the mole a few weeks ago.

    I enjoyed this show and my only fault was they should have had an elimination every week. Some weeks we had 2 episodes in a row where no one was eliminated.

    I found it funny when Shaun still managed to stuff up Hilal in the first challenge.

    But im just glad that they showed clips on how erin sabotaged challenges and to my surprise they even showed how they put clues in that it was erin who was the mole.

  13. Viewers that gave up so early really missed out. This show became the highlight of my tv week. Everything you can ask for from a show. Great cast, lots of strategy, humour, mystery. The highlight was that game of go fish last week it was so dynamic and tense.

    Would have been good to see Sam at the finale after he spent $95k at the auction of what turned out to be his mates prize money.

  14. With all the success Seven has had over the last few years…it was almost as if they could put anything on air and it would rate…..This proves it is not the case…And is good to see.

  15. There was a lot wrong with this show.
    The contestants were a weak cast. Very unlike Seven to cast this show so badly.
    Also there were very over-complicated games. I saw a couple of epsiodes and the digging on the beach was one of the worst TV challenges I have seen in a long time.
    Also the graphics and the music felt very 90s too. It all just felt just dated and dissapointing. Pity for the Shura guy as he was great.

  16. Completely agree with Ed. I was so looking forward to this and I actually think the casting was great, challenges were great, Shura was great but Seven ruined it. I gave up after episode 3 because of Seven’s editing and the way they stretched it. I caught bits and pieces here and there and even 1 ep a week they were still drawing it out

    Had it been one episode a week, one elimination a week I would have happily stayed around. Seven’s program editors are to blame cos it was a good show.

  17. I’ve enjoyed this series, and last night was no exception. Shame Seven stuffed up at the start because it soon clicked with the big personalities and the different dynamics etc. Oh well, at least we got all of this series!

  18. Loved the clues Shura revealed that were right in front of our eyes, especially the one in the opening credits. Even though the show didn’t do well I thought Shura was a great host and I hope the failure of The Mole doesn’t jeopardise future opportunities for him at Seven. Perhaps hosting a game show could be a good vehicle for him.

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