Justin Hartley's New Series 'Tracker' Lost a Whopping 105 Million Viewers From Its Lead In

There are some articles out this morning celebrating the fact that Justin Hartley’s new CBS series, Tracker, “scored a very solid” 18 million viewers in its debut on Sunday. On any other night, 18 million viewers would be exceptional. Last Wednesday’s episode of Chicago Med, for instance, was seen by 6.3 million overnight viewers, which is, in fact, “very solid.”

But Tracker followed literally the most-watched telecast in television history in Sunday night’s Super Bowl, which was seen by 123 million viewers, on average, and peaked at around 200 million viewers. That’s more people than watched the moon landing. That is an insane number of people! And yet, only 18 million of the 123 million average viewers stuck around to watch Justin Hartley take off his shirt in an airstream trailer. Does that mean that Tracker had the biggest drop off from its lead-in in television history?

I’m joking, but also not. Remember Undercover Boss? It was watched by 75 million people after the Super Bowl. That Super Bowl episode of This Is Us was seen by 25 million people, which means that Hartley’s Tracker was seen by 7 million fewer viewers than Hartley’s This Is Us. It’s not that impressive.

As for the show itself? It’s decidedly OK. It’s vintage CBS fare: A down-the-middle procedural about a guy named Colter Shaw (Hartley) who collects rewards for finding missing people. Based on The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver, Shaw is a loner-type who lives in an airstream and travels from one job to the next, and the only people with whom he seems to have a steady relationship are his handlers, a lesbian couple who own a lot of dogs (played by Abby McEnany and Robin Weigert). Shaw also has a tragic backstory involving an abusive father who also taught him how to track. It is watchable (mostly because of Hartley) but thoroughly mediocre. It will probably run for seven seasons on CBS. Hartley will be another well-known actor who disappears into the CBS ecosystem.