I must admit, I have a soft spot in my heart for WEtv. It’s not because I find myself watching it all that much of my own accord, you understand, but my wife is a diligent viewer of “Bridezillas” marathons, and I’ve been known to get caught up in an episode or two while she’s watching that show. And, okay, I had quite a few laughs at “Party Mamas,” too. Oh, hell, if I’m going to talk up the network at all, then I should also praise “High School Confidential,” which was a really fantastic reality series that explored the lives of twelve girls over the course of four years.

Fine. I like WEtv. Happy?

And I’m probably going to end up liking it a bit more now that they’re adding a very interesting new series called “The Locator.”

Troy Dunn is the titular character of this reality series, and he’s a gentleman who has spent the past 18 years finding over 40,000 people and reconnecting lives. Steve Cheskin, head of programming for WeTV, couldn’t say enough good things about it, but probably the greatest compliment he paid was this: “It was the best-testing, highest-testing pilot I ever remember in my 20-some years of being in the business.” Indeed, it’s such a heartwarming premise for a series, with Dunn going on a quest in each episode to find a friend or family member who’s been MIA for years…and, in the case of the latter, they’ve sometimes never even met, such as in the pilot episode, where we see a young woman named Katie go on a quest to find her mother.

“The remarkable thing about (Katie’s) story,” said Dunn, “is that in the 18 years I’ve been reuniting families, it was my first time to find someone, reunite them with their birth mother, and then actually have the birth father come into the picture. And then, she had had two other children with that same birth father, so she actually met two full-blooded sisters, full-blooded father, full-blooded mother. So the entire biological family was in one room at the same time for the first time in their lives. (In) all my years, that’s the first time I’ve had that experience.”

The whole finding-lost-people thing is something that Dunn views as his life’s calling, and it’s possibly not coincidental that his own mother – who actually serves as one of his lead investigators – had never met her own birth mother until recent years. It’s a sad story, though, that had even some of the hard-ass TV critics in the audience getting a little misty.

“Her birth mother rejected her,” Dunn admitted. “Probably the most painful phrase I’ve ever heard in my 18 years of doing this was when her mother said to me…she wouldn’t refer to her as her. She referred to her as ‘it,’ and said, ‘If I knew it was going to call, I might have aborted it.’ So it was very tough and very painful. But even in spite of the tragedy of that experience — and I don’t want to speak for mom. She can speak for herself. But I believe it brought some closure.”

Geez, I hope so.

“The Locator” looks like it could be a pretty enthralling bit of viewing, though the potential is certainly there to be heartbreaking, as proven by Dunn’s own mother. Still, I’m pretty sure my wife will be watching…and, yes, so will I.

Just as a WEtv post-script, the network also sponsored the evening’s entertainment, providing a wedding-reception-themed function full of cocktails and horse-doovers (little burgers, spare ribs, stuffed mushrooms), plus the inevitable wedding cake for dessert. Adding to the fun was the decision to have a bride and groom wandering around the reception, asking if we were having a good time, but what was the most fun was that the critics unabashedly teased them about the fact that, in truth, they were actors who’d only just met that day. We asked the groom where he was from, and when he said, “Maryland,” the bride said, “Really?” Of course, the instant retort from my doppleganger, Bill Harris from The Toronto Sun, was, “Isn’t that the sort of thing you should know before you marry someone?” After several more minutes of comments along these lines, they strolled off to mingle with the rest of the guests, at which point I turned to the other critics and said, “You know, I think those two kids are gonna make it.” I also took advantage of the photo booth, but, sadly, I don’t have a scanner at my disposal to post them. Suffice it to say, though, that in the first shot I’m hoisting a glass of wine – my third of the evening – and, by the end of the sequence of photos, I’m chugging it.

Good times…