One of the 12 contestants is out to spoil the chase for cash. The on-set tension is palpable. Contestants stand edgily in position, eyes fluttering across all corners of the room. Silence fills the air, save for a few fits of nervous laughter. The crew crowd the monitors, pointing and murmuring their hypotheses and placing tentative bets. And this is just behind the scenes of the show. When The Mole returns this week, scenes such as this will most likely be duplicated across living rooms nationally. The whodunit reality show, reinvigorated after eight years off-air, is gearing up to once again turn audiences into amateur sleuths. The format itself hasn't been tampered with. Twelve contestants will compete in various challenges across the country to earn money for a communal kitty, with a Judas among the 12 intentionally seeking to spoil the group's efforts. At the end of each week, contestants complete an online quiz on the identity of The Mole, with whomever returns the lowest score "terminated" (espionage terminology is rife in the show). All aboard: Shura Taft hosts Channel Seven's new series of The Mole. For a show that hinges on such a central piece of information, the prospect of rejuvenating in the social media era may have left some network executives a tad anxious. Executive producer John Leahy had no such concerns, though. He saw it as an opportunity to add an extra layer to the mystery, ensuring all contestants would have active Twitter accounts and respond to fans while the show airs. Leahy was one of only three gatekeepers who knew The Mole's true identity during taping. Involved in whittling down the 3000 applicants as well as selecting the eponymous saboteur, he made sure each of the final 12 would agree to be The Mole if chosen. For him, the notion that The Mole was just an ordinary contestant was imperative. "You couldn't choose an actor to go into this game because no matter how good an actor is, by definition of their role they take the mask on and off," Leahy says. This is 12-plus weeks where they live, sleep, breathe, and wash beside each other. The Mole has to be undercover every second, and to write the scope for an actor to do the role would take longer than it does to shoot it. That constant scrutiny certainly isn't confined to the contestants. For host Shura Taft, keeping a calm and neutral front was crucial. Make a sideways glance or linger too long in one position, and contestants start to think something is being hinted at slyly. The irony is, Taft is as clueless as the contestants, but their paranoia works in mysterious ways. One such way is the deliberate strategies contestants put in place. The most common of these, "moleing," sees them deliberately commit acts of treason during challenges to lay a false scent for the others. It's a double-edged strategy, trading off money for a psychological foothold. "It's a really fine balance," Taft says. The best 'moleing', or mole-ish behaviour, you'll see in the show will be people who just do subtle things. Not necessarily losing money, but something as simple as a look or a laugh at the wrong time. The mental gymnastics were a risk the producers were hyper-aware of, with psychologists on hand to provide continuous reality checks on the well-being of the contestants. Unlike other reality shows, the day does not wrap with the end of shooting. "The game was never off," says Sydney contestant Alex Lee. Even when we weren't in challenges or quizzes everybody was still really mindful of the game, and aware that the personalities people were displaying were still part of the game. The things you notice outside the challenges are probably more useful to you than what you see in them. Even this psychological exhaustion, though, gave birth to a whole new strategy of deduction. "It meant I was always looking for inconsistencies in behaviour," Lee says, "comparing what people would do in one moment to the next, because you can only put on an act or a face for so long when you're talking months of such intensity. "I was completely myself, though," he rapidly assures. But of course he would say that. The Mole premieres on Seven on Tuesday at 7.30pm. Poll: Will you be watching The Mole? Total votes: 191.