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Celebrity Mole:Hawaii
Eagle Vision // Unrated // March 23, 2004
List Price: $29.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
The best reality series that hardly anyone watched, "The Mole" was orginally pegged as a take-off on "Survivor", but managed to add its own spin to the genre. A group of players found themselves in a foreign location, with one of them being "The Mole" - a player who is paid to work against the team. At the end of every episode, players were given a quiz where they had to answer questions regarding who they thought was "The Mole", such as where the Mole was standing when they were doing a challenge, or what color outfit they were wearing. The player that got the least amount of questions right got the boot.
The challenges of the game were an interesting mix of athletic and intellectual, and the game was spiced with a healthy dose of paranoia as players and viewers were both working to figure out who was trying to work against the rest. Unfortunately, ABC never was able to find a right time slot for the show or figure out how to advertise it, which hurt the first season and caused the second season to suffer tremendously: the network put the second round of "Mole" on hiatus mid-season, leaving viewers suddenly high-and-dry in their quest to try and figure things out. The remaining episodes eventually were aired, but it was too little, much too late.
Still, when a small legion of celebrity-based reality shows came onto the scene, "The Mole" found the perfect opportunity to come back out of the shadows. "Celebrity Mole"'s differences from the original series were certainly apparent from the start: where the original show was presented in a serious and straightforward manner, "Celebrity Mole" has a rather "wink-wink" attempt at serious that's entertaining and well-played, yet also drains some of the tension and urgency out of the proceedings. The challenges are still rather inventive, but a little more silly, as we see the celebs try to wrangle sheep with little playing card outfits in a "blackjack" stunt early on. There's also a game of underwater charades in an episode. Ahmad Rashad is a fine host, although he's nowhere near as perfect as Anderson Cooper (now a cable news reporter) was for the original series.
"Mole: Hawaii" starred Michael Boatman ("Spin City"), Kathy Griffin ("Suddenly Susan", a couple episodes of "Seinfeld"), Erik Von Detten ("Princess Diaries"), Stephen Baldwin ("The Usual Suspects"), Kim Coles ("In Living Color"), Frederique Van Der Wal (Victoria's Secret model) and Corbin Bernsen ("Major League"). The casting turned out to be near-perfection, as Griffin, who may not be everyone's taste in comedy, played off the other celebs wonderfully, not getting along terribly well with Baldwin in particular. I haven't always liked her in film and TV, but she's never been better than she is here. Baldwin and Bernsen also were an entertaining team - one that returned in the second, somewhat less successful season of "Celebrity Mole".
The original "Mole", in my opinion, is second only to "Amazing Race" in terms of the best that the reality genre has produced. This new edition (which also is apparently not coming back now, due to low ratings) wasn't as great as the original, but it was a pleasant way to be able to still keep seeing this inspired series.
This 3-DVD set includes all 6 hour-long episodes of the series. All 3 discs have 2 episodes and the final disc has the bonus features.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Celebrity Mole: Hawaii" is presented by Eagle Rock in 1.33:1 full-frame, the show's orginal aspect ratio. These are excellent transfers, with only a handful of minor concerns. Sharpness and detail were terrific throughout, as the picture appeared to be rock-solid and, at times, even more well-defined than when the shows were originally broadcast.
The only real concern with the presentation was the presence of some occasional compression artifacts and light edge enhancement. While both issues were minor, they still were slightly distracting. The show's natural color palette remained bright, vivid and well-saturated throughout. Overall, I thought, despite a few concerns, these presentations looked great.
SOUND: The show's stereo presentation remained clear and crisp, with easily understood dialogue. There's a little background ambience and the score, but other than that, this is a fairly simple audio presentation.
EXTRAS: There are several extended/deleted scenes, including "the arrival" and much more Kathy Griffin (one deleted scene where she and Erik discuss "hotel in-room entertainment"). The deleted scenes are broken into a few sections: "suspicions", "deleted scenes", "extended scenes", "funny moments", "post execution reactions", "post execution interviews" and "confessionals".
Final Thoughts: Entertaining, involving and a great deal of fun, this first season of "Celebrity Mole" isn't as fast-paced or involving as the original series, but it's still enjoyable and a step above most reality fare. The DVD offers very good image and sound, along with a handful of decent deleted footage. Recommended.
The best reality series that hardly anyone watched, "The Mole" was orginally pegged as a take-off on "Survivor", but managed to add its own spin to the genre. A group of players found themselves in a foreign location, with one of them being "The Mole" - a player who is paid to work against the team. At the end of every episode, players were given a quiz where they had to answer questions regarding who they thought was "The Mole", such as where the Mole was standing when they were doing a challenge, or what color outfit they were wearing. The player that got the least amount of questions right got the boot.
The challenges of the game were an interesting mix of athletic and intellectual, and the game was spiced with a healthy dose of paranoia as players and viewers were both working to figure out who was trying to work against the rest. Unfortunately, ABC never was able to find a right time slot for the show or figure out how to advertise it, which hurt the first season and caused the second season to suffer tremendously: the network put the second round of "Mole" on hiatus mid-season, leaving viewers suddenly high-and-dry in their quest to try and figure things out. The remaining episodes eventually were aired, but it was too little, much too late.
Still, when a small legion of celebrity-based reality shows came onto the scene, "The Mole" found the perfect opportunity to come back out of the shadows. "Celebrity Mole"'s differences from the original series were certainly apparent from the start: where the original show was presented in a serious and straightforward manner, "Celebrity Mole" has a rather "wink-wink" attempt at serious that's entertaining and well-played, yet also drains some of the tension and urgency out of the proceedings. The challenges are still rather inventive, but a little more silly, as we see the celebs try to wrangle sheep with little playing card outfits in a "blackjack" stunt early on. There's also a game of underwater charades in an episode. Ahmad Rashad is a fine host, although he's nowhere near as perfect as Anderson Cooper (now a cable news reporter) was for the original series.
"Mole: Hawaii" starred Michael Boatman ("Spin City"), Kathy Griffin ("Suddenly Susan", a couple episodes of "Seinfeld"), Erik Von Detten ("Princess Diaries"), Stephen Baldwin ("The Usual Suspects"), Kim Coles ("In Living Color"), Frederique Van Der Wal (Victoria's Secret model) and Corbin Bernsen ("Major League"). The casting turned out to be near-perfection, as Griffin, who may not be everyone's taste in comedy, played off the other celebs wonderfully, not getting along terribly well with Baldwin in particular. I haven't always liked her in film and TV, but she's never been better than she is here. Baldwin and Bernsen also were an entertaining team - one that returned in the second, somewhat less successful season of "Celebrity Mole".
The original "Mole", in my opinion, is second only to "Amazing Race" in terms of the best that the reality genre has produced. This new edition (which also is apparently not coming back now, due to low ratings) wasn't as great as the original, but it was a pleasant way to be able to still keep seeing this inspired series.
This 3-DVD set includes all 6 hour-long episodes of the series. All 3 discs have 2 episodes and the final disc has the bonus features.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Celebrity Mole: Hawaii" is presented by Eagle Rock in 1.33:1 full-frame, the show's orginal aspect ratio. These are excellent transfers, with only a handful of minor concerns. Sharpness and detail were terrific throughout, as the picture appeared to be rock-solid and, at times, even more well-defined than when the shows were originally broadcast.
The only real concern with the presentation was the presence of some occasional compression artifacts and light edge enhancement. While both issues were minor, they still were slightly distracting. The show's natural color palette remained bright, vivid and well-saturated throughout. Overall, I thought, despite a few concerns, these presentations looked great.
SOUND: The show's stereo presentation remained clear and crisp, with easily understood dialogue. There's a little background ambience and the score, but other than that, this is a fairly simple audio presentation.
EXTRAS: There are several extended/deleted scenes, including "the arrival" and much more Kathy Griffin (one deleted scene where she and Erik discuss "hotel in-room entertainment"). The deleted scenes are broken into a few sections: "suspicions", "deleted scenes", "extended scenes", "funny moments", "post execution reactions", "post execution interviews" and "confessionals".
Final Thoughts: Entertaining, involving and a great deal of fun, this first season of "Celebrity Mole" isn't as fast-paced or involving as the original series, but it's still enjoyable and a step above most reality fare. The DVD offers very good image and sound, along with a handful of decent deleted footage. Recommended.
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