Television series

Tracker

Name: Tracker
Genre: Drama, Action, Crime
Released: 2024
Cast: Justin Hartley, Fiona Rene, Chris Lee, Abby McEnany, Eric Graise

Tracker is CBS's glossy, dependable case-of-the-week drama: Justin Hartley plays Colter Shaw, a wandering 'reward seeker' who uses old-fashioned tracking and observation skills to solve other people's mysteries for cash, while slowly untangling his own family's secrets. It's handsome, competent, unhurried network comfort food — for anyone who wants a hero who's good at his job and kind to strangers, no cliffhangers required.

TVMaze rating

7.5

If you liked this

Reacher2022

Same wandering, hyper-competent loner premise turned up to eleven — Reacher solves crimes town by town using observation and brute force instead of tracking skill, with the same drifter-hero comfort Tracker trades in.

But The violence is heavier and Reacher himself is far chillier than Colter Shaw — less family warmth, more clinical problem-solving machine.

MacGyver2016no page yet

For the pure pleasure of watching resourcefulness win the day, MacGyver swaps tracking for improvised engineering — same case-of-week structure, same everyman-genius appeal, same breezy network confidence.

But It leans goofier and more gadget-happy than Tracker, with less emotional weight and thinner character work underneath the fun.

Walker2021no page yet

Jared Padalecki plays another lone, principled man returning to complicated family ties while solving cases week to week — the fractured-family thread runs even deeper here than in Tracker.

But It's softer and more melodramatic, with less action and more small-town sentimentality than Tracker's harder edges.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Wind River2017

Both are built on the same premise — expert wilderness tracking used to solve a case others can't crack — but Wind River drops the episodic comfort and reward-seeker fun for grief, poverty and real consequence.

Jeremy Renner plays a Fish and Wildlife tracker whose ability to read snow and terrain drives a devastating search for a missing young woman — the same tracking-as-detective-work idea, taken utterly seriously.

But It's bleak, slow-burning, and genuinely upsetting in places — nothing here offers the reward-money bounce or tidy closure Tracker gives you.

Person of Interest2011

A mysterious ex-operative with unnervingly precise skills helps strangers in trouble one case an episode — the same rescue-of-the-week rhythm, wrapped in a sharper, more paranoid sci-fi mystery.

But The tech-thriller premise and serialized conspiracy plot ask for more patience and attention than Tracker's standalone cases.

Blue Bloods2010

CBS's other reliable comfort procedural, built around a fractured-but-loving family and cases solved with old-fashioned competence — the network's whole house style, just with badges instead of bounty money.

But It's talkier and more dinner-table than action-forward, and the family drama can feel more soapy than Tracker's.

The Equalizer2021

Queen Latifah plays a vigilante-for-hire helping people the system failed, one grateful client at a time — the same reward-seeker-with-a-conscience shape as Colter Shaw, just louder and angrier.

But It's blunter and more issue-driven, with less of Tracker's quiet wilderness-skill fascination and more straightforward action-hero payoff.

Longmire2012

A rural sheriff with tracking instincts and a complicated past works cases across vast, beautiful land — slower, moodier, and more interested in the terrain itself than Tracker usually is.

But The pace is considerably slower and the tone more melancholy; if you want Tracker's zip, this can feel sedate.

NCIS2003

The granddaddy of CBS procedural comfort — a team solving crimes with technical expertise and workplace-family banter, for anyone who wants Tracker's cozy case-of-week rhythm multiplied by twenty seasons.

But There's no lone-wanderer romance here — it's ensemble, institutional, and much less about one man's private code.

Jack Reacher2012no page yet

Tom Cruise's version of the same drifter-detective DNA that Lee Child's novels share with Tracker's whole lineage — tight, self-contained, and a decent two-hour dose if you don't want a series commitment.

But It's one movie, not an ongoing world, and Cruise's Reacher is colder and more mechanically efficient than Colter Shaw.

Alone2015

Tracker's appeal leans hard on Colter Shaw's wilderness self-sufficiency; Alone removes the crime plot entirely and shows what that skill actually looks like without a script, a reward, or rescue waiting at the end.

Real survivalists dropped alone into brutal wilderness with almost nothing, filming themselves as they try to outlast everyone else — the raw, unscripted version of the competence fantasy Tracker sells you weekly.

But There's no mystery, no dialogue to speak of, and long stretches of quiet struggle — it asks patience Tracker never demands.

Kung Fu1972

Tracker didn't invent the lone wanderer who rolls into someone else's crisis and leaves having fixed it; Kung Fu ran that exact format decades earlier, swapping tracking skill for martial philosophy but keeping the shape identical.

Decades before Colter Shaw, a wandering martial artist drifted from town to town using quiet expertise and moral conviction to solve strangers' troubles, one episode at a time — the drifter-hero template running clean.

But The pace is theatrical and meditative by today's standards, and the martial-arts choreography now reads as gently dated.