PBS debuts travel show with KC media personalities who Get Lost!

PBS has a new travel show that dares to break the mold, by traveling semi-locally and also handing off adventure programming to two co-hosts—a choice rarely made in the genre. Featuring local media personalities, Michael Mackie and Lonita Cook are unleashing Get Lost! on the region. In each episode, the duo throws darts at a map of our extended chunk of the country, then embarks to deep dive on the locations that fate selects, no matter how out of the way they may be.

The pilot episode for the series airs tonight, Thursday, Feb. 29, at 7 p.m. on Kansas City PBS Channel 19.1. Future airing dates and show information is available on the PBS show site. A full series order may be on the horizon, with the show currently featured prominently as part of PBS’ March fundraiser.

Cook is a creative producer, film critic, and arts advocate—familiar to viewers of KCTV5’s My KC Live and Des Moines WHO13’s Hello Iowa! Mackie is a travel writer and Emmy-award-winning TV show host, who formerly co-hosted KC Live for KSHB and also contributes the “Four Inane Questions” column to The Pitch.

In the first episode, the duo head to the historic East Bottoms of Kansas City, where they delve into the intriguing history of Kansas City’s Electric Park. The next stop is Excelsior Springs, where they explore mysteries and ghost stories surrounding landmarks like The Elms Hotel. The road trip then takes the two to Hamilton, Missouri, home to the world’s largest spool of thread. The pilot episode’s  adventure wraps in Marceline, Missouri, with an exclusive peek into the life of a young Walt Disney as the two friends visit the Walt Disney Hometown Museum.

Ahead of Get Lost! hitting the airwaves, we sat down with Cook and Mackie to discuss pitching, development, and sweating the small stuff on their journey to the small screen.

The Pitch: Tell us about the process of coming up with Get Lost!

Michael Mackie: I was previously unaware of this, but anybody from the general public is free to pitch an idea to their local PBS. Back in March 2022, literally two years ago, I brought three ideas to them. I was confident they’d love two out of the three, and third was just kinda there—a throwaway concept that had nothing to do with anything. Of course the third one was the one that they loved, and from there I wound up developing the purest distillation of the idea that I wasn’t sure what to do with. I’d gotten the nibble on the concept I had no idea what to do with.

Is it possible they looked at your pitches and threw a dart at the board to make their selection? 

Mackie: I see what you did there. Anyway, I knew I needed a co-host, and Lonita was the only option. She’s a shooting star that I’ve thought should’ve gone supernova a long time ago; she has a true star quality and star power. We used to work together on television shows locally, so we have a camaraderie and rapport that was etched in stone decades ago. And, you know, we’re just really good buds? But equally we have almost nothing in common. We’re friends and polar opposites, each with a drive to explore our every curiosity, and it’s easy to see how that would make for good TV.

Lonita Cook: After Michael’s pitch, they said they wanted him to take a co-host with an arts background, and I come from a long history of arts and museum work, and time spent on the Arts KC Advocacy Committee along with the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Museum. I do work in history and culture nationally and certainly on both sides of the state line. But equally, this pitch came around a time where—to be honest—I felt exceptionally lost in my life. So my pitch back to them, regarding whether or not this show was the right fit, was a request that we be given some latitude to be honest about who we are as people. I wanted this show to take the concept of getting lost very literally—to be allowed to get out on the open road and genuinely find ourselves. When they were on board with that, it was a chance to take a deep dive look at the history of the travel show as a concept. One thing you don’t see often is dual hosts. This genre tends to put one person front and center, when you think about most travel shows you’ve encountered traditionally. There’s a very human element here, with two very big personalities that have similar passions but very different worldviews.

I’m fascinated by the idea of a travel show that comes, less from a place of certainty and professional mastery, but rather from a shared self-discovery, born of shared middle-aged frustration and confusion.

Cook: When you’re thinking about the concept of trusted guide on these programs, there aren’t many hosts willing to open up about how they really are, when it comes to this area of (perhaps shared) inner-wanderlust. There’s a freedom and excitement in truly not knowing where this will go, both on the open road and interpersonally. How will getting lost impact us as people? Will it elevate a sense of joy in our lives, and by extension on all those we interact with, or does it yield a larger set of questions? And if there isn’t resolution or contentment to be found there, is it even more empowering to folks who might be in a similar roadblock? There’s a mood and a tone we’re shooting for, but we”re celebrating the freedom we have to let the show lead us, and to follow that wherever it goes.

Pilot episode dart board. // Courtesy PBS

With that in mind, what are the confines or lanes of the show moving forward? What are the rules?

Mackie: Where the darts fall. For this pilot we wound up in some towns that we literally got lost trying to locate. We made sure that we did not depend on our phones for any part of this, so we just tried to follow physical maps we brought with us, and that did not always work out. We sorta meandered north and east of the city and eventually got to our destinations.

Cook: Our shoots wound up falling on some 100+ degree days, so it felt like we were shooting on the surface of the sun. We worried that you’d be able to see us melting on screen, but what made it to the screen doesn’t look nearly as bad as we saw in our heads. I had to reapply make-up without a mirror repeatedly, so I was just sorta guessing and trusting our producer, but in the end we look pretty beautiful thoughout. I guess that’s the magic of television, because it was brutal to film.

Mackie: You know the scene in Broadcast News where Albert Brooks has flop sweat and they’re worried he’s having a heart attack on camera? That was us for three days. We’d have to reassure the crew that we were fine and capable of getting the next shot, if we just toweled off first. We didn’t have a lot of control over this, but hopefully the future episodes are slightly less… melty.

So as Lonita pointed out, there are a lot of travel shows out there, with a long lineage. What are you excited about with your own program and its potential? What about Get Lost! is new and vital?

Mackie: We have such great camaraderie, but again, we have almost nothing in common. Those different perspectives are exciting to me. I’ve traveled extensively since my youth, and Lonita most traveled in her youth for, like, the occasional bowling tournament. Lonita is a vegan and I tend to end my own bodyweight in red meat, daily. It’s already just an adventure in opposites attractive, but we share this affinity that—through the different lens—makes for good television at the end of the day. There’s a juxtaposition with our interests and worldviews

Cook: Our perspectives of the world square in a fascinating way with our decade-long friendship. We’ve always gone to concerts together and had dinner together and even hosted philanthropic events together. There’s a chemistry on screen, but more importantly a deep, shared admiration. That respect is what allows us to come in from separate origin points that are very, traditionally I think, perhaps “othered” and then focus on what gives us personal satisfaction for taking part in this. Our friendship is the real center point, and that trust allows us to do and say things that other “buddy hosts” would probably not feel comfortable exploring. In Get Lost! we get to find ourselves, and perhaps a new common ground, and we hope other people will find some of their own journey by watching us.

Cook and Mackie on the road in Get Lost! // Courtesy PBS