Survivor: Gabon - Season 17

We've seen this season's cast of Dancing With The Stars and Amazing Race. Now it's time to meet the Survivor players for the upcoming season...

Amongst the 18 contestants there's an actress who made a few appearances on Gilmore Girls, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist, two lawyers, a hairdresser, and the current international champion of Nintendo's Super Smash Brothers Melee video game.

If that doesn't make you want to watch this season, maybe this will - Jeff Probst told the Associated Press recently that this season has a wild animal problem that the producers had to figure out how to deal with. That should make it interesting.

Survivor: Gabon premieres Thursday, September 25th on CBS.

The Amazing Race - Season 13

It's been a long seven months between seasons of Amazing Race. But soon the wait will be over.

The 13th season begins Sunday, September 28th at 8pm on CBS. The dreaded Sunday evening slot means it will probably run late just about every week thanks to sports over-runs. But that does help the ratings somehow (although it annoys me so much I'd rather just watch online if they make it available that way this year).

This year's teams include married beekeeper / super hippies, southern belles, a brother / sister team, a separated couple looking to reconnect, a couple just back together after a year-long break-up, and six other teams. Here they are...


Find out more about the teams here.

Dancing With The Stars - Season 7

The new season of Dancing With The Stars debuts Monday, September 22nd at 8pm on ABC.

Earlier today, ABC announced the cast for this season...

SINGERS: Lance Bass (from N'Sync) & Toni Braxton (sang Un-Break My Heart)




ACTORS & ACTRESSES: Susan Lucci (from All My Children), Cloris Leachman (sitcom star), Ted McGinley (sitcom star) & Cody Linley (plays Jake on Hannah Montana)




REALITY STARS: Rocco Dispirito (famous chef), Kim Kardashian (from E! Network's Keeping Up With The Kardashian's) & Brooke Burke (host of Rock Star: INXS and Rock Star: Supernova)




SPORTS STARS: Misty May-Treanor (Olympic volleyball champion), Maurice Green (Olympic track star) & Warren Sapp (football star)




OTHER: Jeffrey Ross (comedian)




Check out the press release to see who they'll be paired up with and who will be performing on the show this season. And watch the official announcement from Good Morning America at ABC's website.

Another zip line course!

About a week ago, I posted about the incredible time I had at the Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course near Lake George, NY.

Now Dollywood (in Tennessee) has announced that they're adding an area very similar to that at their park! It'll be called Adventure Mountain.

There'll be zip lines, rope trails, and rock climbing all over a waterfall gorge! There will be five different courses ranging in difficulty levels. It'll open March 28th.

See the artist renderings of the new area here and start planning a trip to Dollywood for next year!

In the meantime, go to Darien Lake! I had so much fun there Monday night. I just uploaded the audio of our (me, Brian, and Christina's) SkyCoaster ride. Hear it here.

In case you're wondering why it's so short, it had to be edited to air because the only time we were within our transmitter's range was while we were over the water. When we were over the park, the signal was lost.

I should also mention this was done with Darien Lake's permission. To do this, I had to have the microphone duct-taped to me! Not a comfortable thing, but worth it to get the audio.

Interview with Sara Bareilles...

Yesterday, the highlight of the concert for me was getting to talk with Sara Bareilles. She's such a cool person!

We talked about her basket-case-ness (her word), how she knew the members of Maroon 5 in college, who "Love Song" is about, and what happens when she goes on roller coasters right before a concert.

Hear it all here. Then go learn more about Sara at her website.

Rides & an awesome concert!

I'm live at Darien Lake today at the Maroon 5 / Sara Bareilles / Counting Crows concert!

Tickets are still available here or at the gate (at the time I'm writing this at least). But even if you're not going to the concert, come out and join me at Darien Lake. I'll be broadcasting live from 3p - 7p right next to one of my favorite rides, the Ranger!

And if you are going to the concert, make sure you upgrade your ticket to a park pass for just $13 extra! You can do this right at the amusement park entrance gate.

At one point, I'm hoping to interview Sara Bareilles. Love Song has been one of the biggest songs in the country the past few months and her second single Bottle It Up is just as great. Maybe I'll interview her while on the Ranger - wouldn't that be crazy to hear! If you're nearby, you can help me out with the interview. However it happens, I'll post it on my blog later this week.

I'm also looking forward to seeing Maroon 5. Their CD "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" has four huge hits already (Makes Me Wonder, Wake Up Call, Won't Go Home Without You, and recent addition If I Never See Your Face Again w/ Rihanna).

And Counting Crows should be cool too - their new CD is called Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. The first hit from it (You Can't Count On Me) is something I've been listening to on my iPod for months now.

See you at Darien Lake!

Pineapples & Psych...

I love the show Psych on USA Network Friday nights.

It's in its 3rd season now and I've just noticed that there's a pineapple featured in every episode. Then when I went to the website, I found a whole bunch of pineapple related things.

There's cast & crew theories on the pineapple obsession, a video showing some of the pineapple appearances, a pineapple spotting contest, a Psych pineapple merchandise area, and even pineapple recipes!

Mmmmm, pineapple...

The Mole is...

Who????!!!! I never saw that coming.

I'm not going to post spoilers right at the top of the message, but they will be below. So if you don't want to know, don't read any further.

Good thing I didn't try to get on the show this season. That would have been the most embarrassing thing ever to be one of the first to go for being so clueless. I was sure it was Nicole! The phrase even rolled right off the tongue (Nicole is The Mole).

As for the show itself, ABC's President had said if it didn't do better in the ratings after the recap special aired, it probably wouldn't be coming back. It didn't, so it's probably gone from ABC.

But Bill McDaniel seems to think it's not gone for good. Here's his thoughts on the big reveal and a possible future for The Mole...

Ah, a good season! Congratulations to Mark and to Craig! As I've noted several times, any of the final three could have been the Mole and I would not have been surprised. Mark actually threw me off because he was so smart and got answers so readily. I just thought he had to have been given some of those answers!

Craig played an excellent game, and certainly was an excellent Mole; he was not on my radar for the first half of the season, then remained just down the list as the Mole.

I really felt that if Craig was the Mole, Mark would win. If he was as smart as he appeared, and kept such meticulous notes, I felt he would do extremely well on the final quiz; he did just that!

I liked the "hidden clues" this season much better than in season 2. They were not so obvious, and instead of pointing to one player solely, pointed to the final three. I'm glad the producers did not give it away this time in those clues.

So, do we get another season? I think so. Will it be on ABC? Maybe not. However, this show has a dedicated audience, and the ratings were such that most cable channels would love to have this show, I believe. Therefore, I predict another season.

Again, congratulations to Craig and Mark, and to Nicole for playing a fine game!

Bill
The Mole II

Thank you again Bill for all your Molish insights on this season. Don't forget to check out Bill's book "Reflections Of The Mole", a detailed behind-the-scenes look at season two of The Mole.

An awesome obstacle course...

Most of last week was spent in Lake George with friends & family. And while there, I found one of the coolest places - it's called the Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course.

It's an elaborate obstacle course, something you'd usually only see on TV. It isn't as vicious as the TV show Wipeout - it's more like something Amazing Race would do.

There's four courses total, ranging from kiddie to extreme, and all are located up in the trees. Each course has ten or more elements to it and takes at least 30 minutes to get through. This was definitely the highlight of my vacation!

There's suspended cable bridges (Mackenzie and I are making our way across one in these pictures), suspended vertical nets, swinging logs, and a ton of zip lines (including an uphill zip line).

Nicole and DJ (the younger kids) tackled the level 1 course and had a great time. Brian (their older brother) was able to do levels 1 & 2. If he was a little taller, I'm positive he could have done all the courses with ease - he's a natural at stuff like this. You won't see him in any of the pictures because he was fearless and just flew through the courses, going beyond the area where we were able to get pictures of him. I couldn't even keep up with him on level 2!

Sandy (focusing on not dropping here) and Claude did level 2. Me, Mackenzie, and my Dad took on both levels 2 & 3. When finished, both Mackenzie and I agreed we were too wiped out to do level 4, which we were told is much, much harder than level 3.

The pictures above are from level 2 - the dreaded rock wall. It looks tiny, but keep in mind, you're about 30 feet off the ground when doing all this. Sandy makes her way across it with Claude about to follow in the first picture, then it's Mackenzie and me in the second picture (with my Dad in the background about to reach the rock wall).

And the evil creators of the course give you no rest after this. Once off the rock wall, it's back to balancing on a small cable.

There's no pictures of it, but the swinging logs that you had to balance on (jumping from log to log) completely wiped me out. Some logs were sideways, while others were like balancing beams that you walked end to end on - and all were swinging wildly. Thanks to the swinging, you sometimes had to make a long stretch / jump to get to the next one. My arms were so tired just from keeping myself from not dropping. But it was still well worth it.

I probably should mention that at all times we've got two safety lines attached in case we should fall off anything. But even with those lines, dropping would still be an extremely unpleasant thing because then you'd have to pull yourself back up to continue on.

The price was very reasonable considering how much there was to do. We went after 3pm, so it was only $30 each (regular price is $40, kids price is $25). Gloves cost $3 extra (this really should not be an option as you absolutely need the gloves).

See videos of the course (including the Tarzan Jump, zip lines, and the dreaded swinging logs) at their website.

There's also franchise info there. This would fit in perfect on the New York side of Niagara Falls near the Three Sisters Islands. If I had the money, I'd be all over this. Someone could easily get rich here.

The Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course is located about 30 minutes north of Lake George, NY less than a mile from exit 24 on I-87 (five and a half hours away from Buffalo). There's complete directions on the website.

Prizes this week...

I'm psyched to be filling in for Rob Lucas again all this week on the morning show. And I've got some amazing prizes I'll be giving away, the biggest being...

• Jonas Brothers tickets! The concert is Friday, August 15th at Darien Lake. I'll give away a pair of tickets every weekday morning at 9am with Star Of The Day.

• If you won tickets to see Maroon 5, Counting Crows, and Sara Bareilles on our Shooting Star Weekend, listen Monday morning at 8:10am to see if you've also upgraded your tickets to front row passes along with a Maroon 5 meet & greet before the show and an autographed Maroon 5 guitar!

• Tuesday & Thursday mornings I'll give away more tickets and meet & greet passes to the Maroon 5, Counting Crows, and Sara Bareilles concert at Darien Lake on Monday, August 18th.

• Friday morning at 7:40am, I'll give away this week's One Tank Getaway to the Burlington Ribfest (Canada's largest Ribfest) including a two-night hotel stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Burlington.

• And every weekday morning between 6:00am - 9:00am, I'll give you a chance to qualify to win a Basil car during our Summer Of Variety! By qualifying, you'll get two passes to Darien Lake (home of the Orange County Choppers MotoCoaster) & two additional Darien Lake passes to return on August 30th to see if you win the car!

Who Is The Mole?

I finally got to see episode nine and I'm completely convinced that Nicole is The Mole. Her rudeness with Jon was strange Mole behavior though, but that's the way she's been all along so why not play that way until the end.

If I'm right, I guess I should have tried out for the show. But I would have done terrible on the quizzes had I been in the game. I never would have remembered what order people were standing in on a specific day or what kind of shirt they were wearing while playing a game. That's not something I pay attention to, so I would have done horrible even if I was right about who The Mole was.

I did spot two different clues throughout the episode about The Mole's identity - during the opening titles there was a code that probably went along with the Defuse The Bomb game and then midway through the show there was audio that I think was backwards or sped up going into a commercial. I didn't bother figuring out either one though. I'd rather be surprised when I see the final episode.

I am anxious to see if they reveal what was in The Mole's dossier that Mark gave up $75,000 to see. The dossier was also offered in season two, but was never opened. Bill / The Mole is the one that got to it first and says the producers revealed to him later that there was nothing in that dossier but a blank piece of paper. I wonder if that's what they did this time too. Hopefully, we'll find out in the finale.

I'd like to see Mark as the winner. He's mentioned twice now that both him and his wife have to work two jobs to get by. He said if he wins, his wife will be able to quit her two jobs and stay home with the kids. For that reason alone, I'd like to see him win. We'll see Monday night.

As we await the season finale, here's some other Mole things to watch...

��� Deleted scenes from this season (click on "extras" below the video screen on the abc.com page).
��� Darwin (from season two) has a Save The Mole video (apparently, he's now delusional thanks to his season on the show).
��� Heather (from season two) and her Save The Mole video.
��� Paul (from this season) and his Save The Mole video.
��� Jon Kelley (the current show host) and his Save The Mole video.

There's a bunch more too. You'll see them in the "Related Videos" tab on youtube.

So what's Bill's thoughts before the reveal - let's find out who he thinks is The Mole...

OK, to start with, the last 3 weeks have just been outstanding, with outstanding games. Tonight's games were both excellent and fun to watch; the bomb game was the best yet. If the entire season measured up to the last 3 weeks, I think the viewership would be up markedly.

What haven't I liked? The bickering and antagonism between the players. We can get ugly bickering on shows on all channels. I turn them all off. I truly think "The Mole" has so much more to offer than that. I'm really sorry that it was made such an integral part of this season. I have noted before that one of the most frequent positive statements I have heard from more people since "The Mole II" was that it was a family show; there wasn't any ugliness or excessive bickering and the players seemed to like each other. (Truth) I realize that almost every show on television seems to have to have the standard ugliness between the contestants; shoot, folks, we have a political campaign to watch if we want that kind of interplay. The Mole has far more to offer than that.

I like Jon OK; far better than Ahmad. But, he still needs an edge. Maybe if we come back again for another season he will develop one.

Tonight in the Defuse the Bomb game, those of you who like Nicole as the Mole should have been happy. She made the standard number of mistakes, almost costing them the money. Both Craig and Mark were the heroes in the game, though Craig seemed to pick up on what needed to be done the quickest. In the end both Craig and Nicole realized that the purple wire needed to be cut...and the game was won. Who was most suspicious? Nicole. Mark stalled quite a bit, but in the end it made no difference.

Once they won that $50,000, I told my wife that the Mole would not then allow money to be added to the pot in the last game. Period. We all saw the obvious mistakes being made. Again, Craig did an excellent job on his clues. Nicole was clueless...either by design (as the Mole) or to attract suspicion. Or, just because she is Nicole? On the other hand, as the Mole she should have been hustling to get to the finish line first. She was not interested. Lots of mis-steps by both Craig and Mark, but Mark got to the bridge first. And selected the dossier. If he is not the Mole...perhaps that was a good step. If he is the Mole...it was even better.

A good season, overall. We all deserve another! I still think Mark is the Mole. He has done so many little things that I did that I just can't get past them. Again, Nicole or Craig could be the Mole and I would not be disappointed. Boy, if Mark is the Mole, who wins? I think Craig, just because he never lost his journal and had more information at hand than Nicole. If Craig is the Mole, I think Mark is the winner. If Nicole is the Mole, Mark still wins.

Bill
The Mole II

Back from vacation...

I just got back early this morning from my Lake George vacation. I'll put some pictures up soon. And since I'll be filling in for Rob on the morning show next week, I'll be talking about some of the cool places I found while out there (like the outdoor adventure obstacle course - it's something straight out of a reality show)!

Today I was supposed to be at Darien Lake for the big 8-8-08 promotion. But the insane Buffalo weather and the possible hail & lightning forced us to cancel going out there (but Darien Lake will still be honoring the deal if you want to go). If I wasn't at the studio, I know I'd be there - there'll be no lines for anything.

Our new plan is to go Monday, August 18th - the night of the Maroon 5 / Counting Crows / Sara Bareilles concert. In addition to the concert (which you can still get tickets for), there will be all the awesome Darien Lake rides, the 8.88 after 5pm deal (I'll have more details on that as we get closer), and the free with admission Cirque Nouveau show.

Plus (and this just makes everything a thousand times more exciting) Star's mascot Twink will be coming out of the mothballs and making an appearance!!! It appears Twink is foaming at the mouth over this extreme excitement, but I'm pretty sure that'll be taken care of before the 18th.

The Mole - episode nine...

I'm on vacation in Lake George right now, so I probably won't see this episode until I get back on Friday.

And when I do get back, I hope to see you at Darien Lake! I'll be broadcasting there live Friday from 5:00pm - 7:00pm.

In the meantime, check out Bill's thoughts on episode nine here.