Justin Hartley may no longer be Kevin Pearson on the hit show This Is Us, but he’s heading back to television with a brand new series called Tracker. With a premiere date set for right after the Super Bowl in 2024, the series will find life on CBS. So we just now have to wait to see who is playing in that Super Bowl to lead up to Hartley‘s new series. Personally, let’s pray it’s the Pittsburgh Steelers for the Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) representation.

With Hartley set to star as Colter Shaw, the series also has cast Robin Weigert, Abby McEnany, Eric Graise, and Fiona Rene in it, and will be based on the bestselling novel The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver. Even though there is a while until the series heads to CBS, that isn’t stopping the Network from getting audiences excited about it — in the midst of the WGA Strike which doesn’t show signs of stopping anytime soon, so it’s certainly a choice.

According to Deadline, the series which was previously named The Never Game “follows a lone-wolf survivalist named Colter Shaw (Hartley), who roams the country as a “reward seeker,” using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries while contending with his own fractured family.” 

Promotion for the show started back during March Madness when CBS President Mike Benson talked about his strategy for getting audiences excited. “We are going to be strategic about this and build anticipation,” he told Deadline. “We are creating what I think is more of a story-driven marketing campaign. In the spirit of the show, we leave a popcorn trail for the audience to follow.”

Will Tracker Be Affected by the Strike?

It honestly does feel frankly a little weird to push new shows to the public right now. The WGA strike is very much still underway and shows like Tracker are going to be the ones who find themselves stuck if the studios do not pay the writers what they’re owed sooner rather than later. So pushing a series and getting audiences excited for something is a bold move considering it either needs to be completely finished already or will likely find delays later down the line.

But Benson has been talking about this series for a number of years. It was committed to becoming a pilot back in the fall of 2021 and was ordered to a series in December of 2022. “We’ve never had an opportunity like this where we picked up a show so soon so we can start promoting it this soon,” said Benson. “There has never been more content, and we really want to make sure we are creating awareness and interest for it. When we have an opportunity to do that, like with March Madness that has an audience we think would be interested, we want to take advantage.”

Until we know more about the series and where it is (completion-wise), it’s important to use our excitement for the shows coming up to show the studios that without the writers bringing them to life, we’d never have these series in the first place. Hopefully, studios will stop refusing to listen to writers and find a resolution sooner rather than later. Or shows like Tracker might not be making that Super Bowl release date and that’s all at the fault of the studios.

via Collider