That of Anderson Cooper, our host on "The Mole," says, softly and with a sort of unattractive swallowing tic, "Gray."

When the bland Coop tries to look serious, he gets a slightly canine look of indecision on his face, giving the show the intrepid hosting leadership roughly that of a confused poodle.

Coop, it turns out, is a dynamic ABC news correspondent. A network biography on Cooper makes him sound like a veritable Wolf Blitzer, studying Vietnamese, spending time in Somalia and winning swanky awards from institutions like the National Educational Film and Video Festival for a report on Islam.

He's supposed to add an international flair to this lame program. But he's just a stiff, mumbling guy who looks at his watch a lot.

We'd rather watch Wolf Blitzer rearrange himself.

Coop isn't even the chief annoyance of "The Mole." There are certain people who should not be allowed to wield walkie-talkies, and nine of them are on the show right now. In this episode, the series' second, walkie-talkies are everywhere, and the cast is yelling, "Do you copy? Do you copy?" and "Negative!" almost constantly.

The group is still staying at a chateau in the South of France. This show starts with Stephen, the undercover cop, getting kidnapped late at night. We see it all in a night-vision camera, just like in "Big Brother" when we saw Jordan feel up Josh.

Roger that!

Stephen gets taken to a castle and is locked up, with shackles on his legs and an iron mask on his face.

Over breakfast in the morning, Cooper calls the group: They have to first find him (Coop) and then find Stephen.

Already there are two dumb things. First, we're supposed to believe that Stephen is being kept shackled and in the mask for what appears to be eight or 10 hours.

Second, it turns out that it's not that hard for the group to find Coop because ... they get a note that tells them where he is.

This is true drama.

There follows a lot of running around on land, scooting about on sea and flitting hither and yon in air (via helicopter). The group tracks Stephen down to an island off Cannes, but when they get there someone's missing -- Jennifer, the gay snowboarder. Because the group isn't there en masse, the players lose the challenge and all the money.

Jennifer and Henry, the friendly bartender, get into an argument. Jim, the helicopter pilot, throws a key onto the ground angrily.

OK, it's not "The Sopranos." So sue ABC.

The angle of "The Mole," you will remember, is that the group accomplishes the challenges to win money. It's the mole's job to screw things up so the group doesn't win any money.

But all of the characters are still unclear at this point. It's hard to figure out whom to root for, or any reason to root for anyone.

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