Was Justin Hartley nervous about the launch of his new drama series, Tracker, which had the honor of premiering in this year’s coveted post–Super Bowl timeslot? According to the actor formerly known as Kevin Pearson on NBC‘s This Is Us, not until the intense 49ers–Chiefs game went into overtime. “I was like, ‘Oh, so we’re asking people to tune in [to our show] at 11:15 pm?’” he says
Thanks to what Hartley calls “the power of the Super Bowl, the power of Taylor Swift, the power of the NFL and a really great game,” those worries were short-lived, as 18.4 million live viewers stayed up for Tracker’s premiere (with multiplatform numbers, that audience has climbed to more than 33 million). Beyond that solid debut, episodes in the drama’s regular timeslot averaged a strong 7.2 million live viewers.
“All of that is a testament to how good of a show we’re putting out, and it’s just getting better,” the actor, who is also an executive producer, proudly tells TV Guide Magazine while shooting in Vancouver. “Sometimes the entertainment factor of what we do gets lost when you pay attention to numbers. The ratings for me at this point show we are entertaining a large group of people, which I love, and that’s why we’re doing it.”
On the surface, Tracker—which is based on Jeffery Deaver’s bestselling novel The Never Game—resembles many of CBS’s successful procedurals, with the format of noble heroes solving mysteries and saving lives. In this case, it’s a singular savior: stoic professional tracker Colter Shaw (Hartley), who travels across the U.S. collecting cash rewards while helping citizens locate missing persons. But the familiar case-of-the-week element is where the similarities to shows like NCIS or FBI end.
“I remember the initial pitch to the studio,” says executive producer-director Ken Olin, who worked with Hartley on This Is Us and brought him Deaver’s book as their next project. “Colter’s not encumbered by the same restrictions that all these procedurals have, where there’s a base they live out of and they have to adhere to the law.” Instead, the independent contractor is his own boss, traveling to cities like St. Louis and Chicago in an Airstream trailer.
“There’s a throwback element, like The Rockford Files, with this guy going into a new world” weekly, says executive producer Elwood Reid. (Olin cites Then Came Bronson and The Fugitive as series in the same vein of Tracker.) “This was more of a character redress of a procedural because so much of it comes from this character, what he does and the cases he takes.” Reid adds that Colter “is not a cop doing a job. He’s this guy doing this thing for his own personal reasons.”
While Hartley says Colter is “all heart” when on the job, he keeps an emotional distance. That’s in part due to his painful family drama, which viewers got a taste of in the pilot episode: Colter’s tracker-teaching father, Ashton (Lee Tergesen), ended up dead from a cliff fall—with Colter’s older brother, Russell (Matthew Nelson-Mahood), seemingly responsible. The mystery surrounding that event begins to accelerate with the May 5 episode and continues through the May 19 season finale, shaking up the recluse.
“Colter finds out some stuff that does rattle him,” teases Hartley, careful not to reveal too much. “If it happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to sleep thinking that certain people in my life lied to me or misled me intentionally. It changes his family dynamic quite a bit.”
As his past disrupts his present, there’s opportunity for the lone wolf to lean on the team who remotely help him on cases, like brainy Chicago-based techie Bobby Exley (Eric Graise) and caring married couple Teddi (Robin Weigert) and Velma (Abby McEnany), who field Colter’s assignments and provide vital intel from Denver. Then there’s brash traveling lawyer Reenie Greene (Fiona Rene), who shares a slowly simmering spark with Colter. In the April 28 episode, Reenie has a personal connection to his missing-children case in Oregon and comes in to help. “They spend a lot of that episode together, not romantically, but you see there is a relationship,” says Reid, adding, “It’s the biggest story we’ve ever done.”
With Tracker already renewed for Season 2, Hartley is “excited about the endless possibilities and the characters that we can bring in.” Could that include another appearance from wife Sofia Pernas, who played fellow reward seeker and rival Billie Matalon in Episode 6? Leave it to TV’s newest detective: “I know a guy, if we can get her!”
