On the Hunt! Justin Hartley Reflects on the Early Success of ‘Tracker’ and Hopes for the Future
Was Justin Hartley nervous about launching his new TV series, Tracker, in this year’s coveted post-Super Bowl slot? According to the actor formerly known as Kevin Pearson on NBC’s This Is Us, until the tense game between the 49ers and Chiefs went into overtime. “I was like, ‘Oh, so we’re asking people to tune in [to our show] at 11:15 p.m.?'” he said.
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 didn’t last long, as 18.4 million live viewers stayed up to watch Tracker’s premiere (with multi-platform audiences, that audience grew to more than 33 million). In addition to that impressive premiere, the show’s regular-time episodes averaged 7.2 million live viewers.
“All of that is a testament to how great a show we’re making and how much better it’s getting,” the actor, who also serves as an executive producer, proudly told TV Guide Magazine while filming in Vancouver. “Sometimes the entertainment element of what we do gets lost when you look at the numbers. To me, the ratings at this point show that we’re entertaining a large group of people, which I love, and that’s why we do it.”
On the surface, Tracker—based on Jeffery Deaver’s best-selling novel The Never Game—resembles many successful CBS procedurals, with its format of noble heroes solving mysteries and saving lives. In this case, it’s a single savior: dogged professional tracker Colter Shaw (Hartley), who travels across the United States collecting cash rewards while helping citizens find missing people. But the familiarity of the case of the week is where the similarities to shows like NCIS or the FBI end.
“I remember the original pitch to the studio,” says executive producer and director Ken Olin, who worked with Hartley on This Is Us and brought Deaver’s book to him as their next project. “Colter doesn’t have the same constraints as all these procedurals, where they live on a base and they have to follow 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 flashback element, like The Rockford Files, with this guy going into a new world” every week, says executive producer Elwood Reid. (Olin cites Then Came Bronson and The Fugitive as series in the same vein as Tracker.) “It’s a reframing of a procedural because a lot of it comes from this character, what he does, and the cases he takes on.” Reid adds that Colter “isn’t a cop on a mission. He’s a guy who’s doing this for his own personal reasons.” While Hartley says Colter is “wholehearted” when it comes to his work, he remains emotionally distant. Part of that is due to his own traumatic family tragedy, which viewers get a taste of in the first episode: Colter’s father, Ashton (Lee Tergesen), a track instructor, died after falling off a cliff—and Colter’s brother, Russell (Matthew Nelson-Mahood), appears to be responsible. The mystery surrounding that event picks up speed with the May 5 episode and continues through the May 19 season finale, leaving the reclusive in shock.
“Colter finds out some things that mess him up,” Hartley teases, careful not to reveal too much. “If that happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night thinking that some people in my life were lying to me or intentionally trying to deceive me. That changes his family dynamic quite a bit.”
As the past disrupts the present, the lone wolf has the opportunity to lean on a team to help him on cases from afar, like smart tech expert Bobby Exley (Eric Graise) in Chicago and the couple Teddi (Robin Weigert) and Velma (Abby McEnany), who carry out Colter’s missions and provide crucial intelligence from Denver. Then there’s the daring traveling attorney Reenie Greene (Fiona Rene), who shares a smoldering spark with Colter. In the April 28 episode, Reenie has a personal connection to his missing children case in Oregon and comes to help. “They spend a lot of that episode together, not romantically, but you see, there’s a relationship,” Reid said, adding, “It’s the biggest story we’ve ever done.” With Tracker renewed for Season 2, Hartley is “excited about the endless possibilities and characters we can bring in.” Will that include another appearance from his wife Sofia Pernas, who played the finder?
