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Wednesday, September 4, 2024

TV Show Review - Tracker - Season 1

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Strong mysteries with a great lead character
Cons: Could develop supporting characters more; Shaw family backstory
The Bottom Line:
Traveling country
Finding people for rewards
Can not wait for more




“You Collect Rewards, Right? A Mercenary?” “I Prefer the Term Rewardist.”

Having followed the career of Justin Hartley for a while, I was immediately interested in Tracker, his new show on CBS.  Plus, it is a mystery show, and I do love mysteries.  Thanks to its post-super bowl debut, and the show got off to a huge start.  I’m one of those who has been enjoying it the entire way through.

The show revolves around Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley), a man who lives out of the trailer he tows around the country.  He makes his living as a rewardist (his term).  Basically, he goes to where people are offering rewards for helping them find people who have gone missing.  He uses his unique skills from growing up off the grid to find them, and then collects the money.

Over the course of these thirteen episodes, Colter finds a missing boy kidnapped by his father.  He looks for a boy who has joined a cult.  He searching for a missing woman who was exposing a secret in her town.  He tries to find a witness that could free a convicted killer.  He tries to find a missing groom who vanished two weeks before his wedding.  He looks for survivors from a plane that went down in the wilderness.  And he tries to figure out what happened to two storm chasers.

The mysteries of the week are very well done.  I was always intrigued and pulled in by the complications that Colter experienced along the way.  Yes, there are some things that are already feeling like cliches (probably because they go with the genre overall) like the threats and warning to leave town that he ignores.  I don’t mind.  I’m having fun with them.

My concern from the beginning was that Colter might be a bit too mercenary since he is out for the reward.  Yes, the money does bring him in, but he does quickly come to care about his client and the people he’s trying to find.  It really helps humanize him.

But there are some things that don’t quite work for me.  Like who are these people helping him?  I would normally expect more backstory, like how he met these people.  He generally talks to most of them over the phone, so they don’t have much to do.  But I’m still curious how those relationships formed.  The pilot doesn’t give us that backstory, because in many ways it feels like any other episode.

Also, there’s the Shaw family backstory.  We can’t have a show without some kind of on going storyline these days, right?  It was brought up very rarely in the first season.  We’ve gotten some interesting teases that things aren’t all as Colter believes.  I’m wondering how long they are going to drag this out.  There were plenty of episodes where we never heard anything about it overall.

Both of these are minor irritants in an otherwise enjoyable and entertaining season.

So far, the show has stirred clear of being too political for the most part.  A couple of throw away lines rubbed me the wrong way, and there was one storyline that touched on immigration.  Hopefully, things don’t get much worse because I want to keep enjoying the show.  For the record, I sit down to be entertained, not lectured.

Justin Hartley is the anchor that holds this show together.  He’s in almost every scene, and he nails the performance.  He makes it easy to care about Colter and the case he’s investigating.  As I said, the other regulars are very much supporting players, but I enjoy their performances as well.  And the guest cast is always great.

Season one consisted of thirteen episodes, and there wasn’t a truly bad one in the bunch.  I’m curious to see where they are going to go with season two.

If you’ve missed this show, now’s the time to catch up on season one of Tracker so you’ll be ready to enjoy season two this fall.  You won’t be disappointed.

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