Action adventure game show where one of the contestants is actually trying to make the team lose the game

The Mole features ten contestants who must complete challenges together and work as a team. However, one of them is not really a contestant at all. This person has been placed there to reduce the amount of prize money that the contestants win.

Each episode of the programme features a series of challenges for the team to complete. These vary from physical challenges, such as crossing a tightrope while keeping their heart-rates low, to mental challenges, such as solving clues hidden in cryptic rhymes. At the end of each show, all the contestants take a test about the mole. The person who is furthest away from working out who the mole is, is out of the game.

A key feature of the show was the way in which the viewer was involved. Many things that seemed ordinary to begin with, eventually turned out to be clues that would lead the viewer to the identity of the mole. In series two, the team once passed through a room with four clocks on the wall. Each one displayed a different time. Below the clocks were the labels: Montreal, Ottawa, Lake Erie, ???. That series was filmed in Canada, and it seemed that the clues on the clocks had some geographical interpretation. However, on the final programme of the series, it was revealed that the clocks contained semaphore code spelling out the second name of the mole.

The Mole was based on a Belgian programme called "De Mol". Two series of the programme were made for the UK. They were both broadcast in 2001 and were presented by Glenn Hugill. The first series was set in the UK and the second was in Canada. The Mole was made by Action Time for Channel 5.