Classic ABC Reality Show Possibly Being Revived

Clues are mounting that someone is reviving ABC‘s hit reality show The Mole, and fans are getting excited. According to a report by Buzzer Blog, the project referred to in casting calls as “The Insider” may well be a reboot of The Mole — a game show that ran from 2001 to 2008 in the U.S. Here’s a look at all the hints that the show might be making a return.

Casting notices for “The Insider” seem to match all the criteria for The Mole perfectly — they call for contestants who can think strategically, memorize information quickly and perform general feats of mental acuity. It calls for 12 people who will compete together to win a pot of money, with eliminations leaving just one person at the end to take it all. There is also one “insider” among the contestants working to sabotage their efforts, and they will not know who it is.

This format and premise perfectly match that of The Mole, to the point where many people think that “The Insider” is just a working title to keep the project under wraps. Even if this new show does end up being called The Insider or something else, there can be little doubt that it owes a lot to The Mole of the early 2000s.

The Mole was based on a Belgian TV show by the same name, and was hosted by Anderson Cooper in the U.S. It worked just like the casting call, including the fact that successful competitions would add money to the overall pot while failed tasks would take money away. The game is won through strategy, subtlety and manipulation — things that have fallen by the wayside in some of the reality competition shows since.

According to the casting call, each episode will end with a quiz to see if anyone is getting close to deducing who the “insider” is. The scores of this quiz will determine who is eliminated each week. This matches the original series as well.

“The Insider” is set to film this summer in Australia over the course of 7 weeks. Sources close to the production told Buzzer Blog that it was being considered by a streaming service, but that has not been confirmed. Deals like that may not even be finalized until the show is finished filming.

For those interested in the format, the original seasons of The Mole are actually streaming now on Netflix in the U.S. There is no word on when “The Insider” might premiere, or where.