How Big Brother's New Twist Can Bring Back the Spirit of The Mole

Apparently if you renew a reality show for enough seasons, it starts to turn into other reality shows. Big Brother, the CBS summer series where housemates evict each other and compete in backyard stunts, is stealing an idea from ABC's deflated reality series The Mole and throwing a "saboteur" in the house who will pose as a player but will "disrupt the lives of fellow contestants" and "earn additional rewards as long as they go undiscovered, fulfilling fan-inspired tasks." Should the network go even further in its Mole pilfering?

Sure, the idea isn't much different from the "America's Player" conceit of past seasons, except that contestants are actively seeking out the mole this time. But look, Big Brother: You can't reference The Mole when some of us still mourn it every day. Don't taunt us/me. If you insist on blithely stealing The Mole's gold, you should actually incorporate more elements of it to make Big Brother 12 memorable for a series that's past its expiration date.

Here are a few other Mole-y ideas that would work in the Big Brother house.

· Secret bribes

This is as much a play on NBC's Persons Unknown as it is The Mole, but if producers reached out to individual players -- perhaps without the other players knowing -- and offered them $20,000 bribes for being "least liked," or "the biggest threat," that would add some novel suspense. When Elavia from season two of The Mole accepted a $50,000 bribe for being the most suspected contestant in the game, it changed the dynamic for the rest of the competition. In Big Brother, it would shake up the outcome of the game.

· Clues to the saboteur's identity

While home viewers are aware of the Big Brother saboteur's identity, the housemates are in the dark. If producers planted clues in the house -- anagrams, references to the saboteur's hometown in the wall decorations, photo negatives of the saboteur's DUI mugshot, etc. -- that'd provide added visual interest for viewers who tune into Big Brother After Dark. Maybe a violent musclehead contestant will discover the saboteur's high school diploma stuffed in a vase and then break it against the wall in the middle of the night! Maybe!

· Sinister elimination ceremonies

The eliminations on Big Brother are anticlimactic, with Julie Chen's chipper delivery undercutting the cast's hard-fought hostility. If Big Brother incorporated The Mole's ceremonies where a contestant's name is flashed on a screen before a green or red screen appears (indicating whether the contestant is in or out), the moment of elimination could build to a nice, tantrum-inducing climax for the hotheaded housemates. If there's one thing Big Brother can always use more of, it's tantrums.