Tracker has gone through cast changes — and exits — but could there be more reconfiguration soon?
Before the midseason finale on Sunday, December 14, executive producer Elwood Reid weighed in on the onscreen changes.
“What we’re realizing is there are characters that come on that if it worked, we’d bring them back,” he noted. “I do think the show can’t always do that. But when it does do that, it makes the world feel a little bit more connected.”
Reid noted there was only one constant on the show: Justin Hartley‘s fan-favorite character.
“The audience leans in because they’ve seen that character before. But I think they’re still thinking the central DNA of the show is Colter. With this guy, what makes him appealing is he is a mystery to himself,” he noted. “He’s a mystery to the audience. We see him and his off time putting together some pieces of his past.”
As a result, Tracker has remained committed to Colter’s journey. “I don’t know if we’ll ever put it all together but he’s going to struggle to continue to do that,” Reid teased. “That’s just as far as we have thought. The biggest improvement we made this year — in my opinion — was getting people in the same room.”
He continued: “Just that connectivity, I do think the audience is enjoying seeing their characters in the same place physically.”
Tracker, which premiered in February 2024, introduced fictional survivalist Colter (Hartley) as he travels the country to help solve various missing persons cases. As Colter has received more and more help, the ensemble cast has grown with their respective characters, including handlers Teddi (Robin Weigert) and Velma (Abby McEnany), hacker Bobby (Eric Graise) and attorney Reenie (Fiona Rene).
After joining Tracker in season 1, Weigert’s character was written off in the premiere. Season 2 then caused some to be concerned about when Graise was noticeably absent from six episodes. News later broke that Graise and McEnany wouldn’t be coming back — at least for now.
“I do think it’s evolving. If I can’t evolve those characters — Randy or Reenie or Bobby — they’re not just people that just pick up the phone and go, ‘OK, here is the answer.’ That’s when the show is phoning it in,” Reid exclusively told Us in May. “The challenge is when you got to learn about them, which I thought was interesting. That’s the challenge of the show is not having it fall into a formula.”
Reid noted that they didn’t want Tracker to “fall into complacency.”
Justin Hartley’s Tracker is easily CBS’ biggest hit show — so why has it gone through three cast shakeups in just two seasons? When Tracker premiered in 2024, it introduced Us to survivalist Colter Shaw (Hartley) as he travels the country to help find missing people, track down information on criminal cases and more. The […]
“The only rule I really have of the show is each week Colter is going to come to a new place and there’s going to be a new case. How he gets those answers and what he uses on the team, that’s all something that’s up for grabs,” Reid teased. “Meeting these [local] weird characters is something we’re going to try to do more of as the season goes on. Just Colter coming in and interacting with other characters. That’s fun to see Justin flex those muscles with really good guest cast members.”
Ahead of season 3, Reid defended the decision to shake up season 3.
“Justin has to carry so much of the show. So I don’t want the other characters that are in the show to just be phone-a-friend where whenever he’s in trouble, he just picks up the phone. The challenge in season 3 has been how do we build actual good story out of [it],” Reid teased.
He continued: “It’s just building out those story lines. The challenge we set up for ourselves this season was to build out those people’s world a little bit. It’s about trying to get a little bit of lightness [into the show] because sometimes Colter is doing some really dark and heavy stuff. It’s life or death.”
Tracker returns to CBS Sunday, March 1, at 9 p.m. ET.
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