Right at the start of the first promo for Netflix’s reboot of The Mole, host Alex Wagner wastes no time letting viewers know exactly what this show will be about. “Welcome to a new generation of deception,†she says in her most “serious anchor†voice. For fans of the early-aughts ABC reality competition on which The Mole is based, the trailer — debuting for the first time exclusively on Vulture — will come as a relief: Producers clearly understand what made the original a cult classic.
The 2022 model of The Mole follows the original: A group of contestants is flown out of the country (in this case, to Australia) and put through a series of competitions and tests designed to test their ability to work together as a team. The twist: One person on the team is actually working to sabotage their missions and thus reduce the total amount of money in the prize pool. The show is all about deception and (justified) paranoia — sort of the reality-TV version of Knives Out.
The new trailer also gives us our first good look at the cast of 12 players, who range in age from 25 to 40 and include a COVID ICU nurse, a firefighter who’s lost 60 pounds in recent years, a Black female commercial airline pilot, a Ben & Jerry’s factory worker who calls himself “Dom Cruise,†and a six-foot-five “lifestyle-brand manager†from Henderson, Nevada, who’s trying to channel a modern-day Viking (if Vikings wore man buns.) The Mole will roll out over three weeks with the first five episodes of season one dropping October 7. Check out the full trailer below: