Tracker has Justin Hartley, last seen as Kevin on This Is Us, as lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw, who roams the country as a reward seeker while dealing with his own dysfunctional family. The CBS drama was on after the Super Bowl on February 11 and slid into its regular time period a week later.
Hartley and executive producer Ken Olin both worked on This Is Us. Summing up Hartley’s goals after playing Kevin, Olin quipped at a CBS press event, “Justin wanted to carry a gun and get in fights.”
The show is based on the Jeffrey Deaver novel The Never Game and initially had that title. The name change was so that the show would not be confused with video games. “I didn’t want people to watch and see the guy rescue someone,” Olin said, “and wonder when the game would start.”
A difficult childhood has influenced Shaw and his odd career pursuits. “He grew up with a very fractured family,” Hartley said. “There are secrets.”
TV’s Colter Shaw is a bit more animated than his novel counterpart. “Justin is so good with humor,” Olin said. “The character in the book was much more of a silent kind of character.”
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin premieres on Apple TV Plus March 1. Noel Fielding portrays Turpin, a legendary British highway robber from the 18th century.
Executive producer Kenton Allen said Turpin was made into something of a romantic hero in British novels, but that was not the true dude. “Dick Turpin was a pretty awful individual,” he said, “basically a cutthroat murderer and horse thief.”
In the show, Turpin leads a band of outlaws and battles with corrupt lawman Jonathan Wilde, who bears the ominous title Thief Taker. Hugh Bonneville, who played the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, portrays Wilde. “He’s very skillful, very subtle, with great timing,” Fielding said.
Turpin is well known in the United Kingdom, Allen said, thanks to those novels and the Adam and the Ants song “Stand and Deliver.” “He’s definitely in the popular culture here,” he said from London. “Globally, we’re about to find out.”
Allen and Fielding cited Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride and Blackadder as influences. “The Holy Grail has quite a good atmosphere,” Fielding said. “It’s got that spooky British thing about it. We tried to get a little of that.”
The Completely Made-Up Adventures is set almost 300 years ago, but Allen believes it is timely today. “The world is a challenging place at the moment, with lots of very, very grim things,” he said. “Going on adventures with Dick Turpin and his gang is a great escape.”
