About The Wandering Lostie

The Wandering Lostie is dedicated to filling the void left behind on May 23, 2010 – the date Lost went off the air. I write about current shows I watch and new shows that I try but just can’t get behind. The posts are a mix of episode reviews, mid-season reviews, previews and what I call “columns.” Columns are opinion pieces about a television topic or research about shows long-since off the air.

The blog’s theme or perspective is this: Does this show replicate all or part of what I enjoyed about Lost? Some posts make no reference to Lost, others might compare a storyline or use Lost as an example of how a show could tell its story better.

A couple of general things to know:

• We only refer to Lost episodes by their titles. Always “Live Together, Die Alone.” Never “the season two finale.”
• You can enjoy the blog without ever having watched Lost. I assume with most references that a reader at least has a basic knowledge of the show, but you won’t lose much if you never saw it.
• I am all about storytelling. The ultimate decision to watch or not watch a show always comes down to how well it tells its stories. Case in point: Nashville. An enjoyable show to watch with some very talented musicians, but one I cast aside because it failed at storytelling.
• I love everything about television, not just watching it. Creating shows, writing shows, pilots, production, the business of television. Everything. As the site goes on my goal is to be pretty close to a 2-to-1 ratio of posts about watching shows and posts about what goes on before camera rolls.

Who is The Wandering Lostie?
My name is Kevin Watterson, I’m a 32-year-old communications and public relations guy in Minneapolis. Some of the older posts are things I used to write and put up as notes on MySpace or Facebook. It was just a diversion back then, an attempt to balance out all of the political writing I was doing as a PR person in the Minnesota Legislature. I’m a big believer in balancing your mind. Political work is heavy on numbers and technicalities, so writing about television entertainment helped me exercise a different, more creative thought process that I was not always using at the office.

You might notice that the posts became longer and more frequent around the end of 2012 and the start of 2013. That coincides with my decision to leave the political world and look for work in a different side of public relations. Since then the blog has been a great way to keep my writing and editing skills fresh for when I eventually do land my next job. (If you would like to know more about me professionally, feel free to scoot on over to my LinkedIn profile.) I am pretty active on Twitter so I encourage you to follow there and we can make some blue lines together.

I grew up on a farm in Iowa. We couldn’t get cable and didn’t get DirecTV until I was 17. I learned to enjoy the three networks we got over-the-air from Sioux Falls and Sioux City. My affinity for television started young. I remember crossing the road to my grandparents’ house to watch Dallas – the real Dallas, not the one airing on TNT. I watched Knots Landing and Falcon Crest with my parents. Later when my siblings were older we’d fight over whether our one television would be tuned to MacGyver or Alf. This was when VCRs were things you had to rent at the town grocery store, so if you miss an episode you really do miss it.

It was about this age when I would be home from school in the summer with my mom (a substitute teacher then) and watch soap operas like One Life to Live, General Hospital and The Young and the Restless. Or, since we call them by their main characters, Asa, Luke and Victor.

Later I would take to shows like Picket Fences, Wings, Friends, Profiler and The Pretender. College in the early-2000s was a television dead zone, only taping Y&R and bingeing it on weekends. (Not a normal way for a college student to binge, I know.) It was Lost that got me back into television in 2004. Soon after I picked up The West Wing reruns on Bravo and am proud to say I was hooked on Arrested Development.

I tried to keep my plate of shows down to three or four, but when the networks started rolling out their versions of “the next Lost” I realized how much I enjoyed great television. So I let it expand, picking up shows like Flash Forward, Fringe and now so many others. I didn’t get Netflix last winter (unemployment + Kevin + Netflix = very bad), but I have a list a mile long for the next time I do. I’ll be able to talk about The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and much more. Joy!

The blog is a way for me to express something I enjoy and share my opinions about it. Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy what you read. If you love a show you think I should watch, let me know about it. I would be happy to check it out.

Namaste.