Entertainment
‘Tracker’ Just Laid the Perfect Groundwork for a Jensen Ackles-Led Spin-Off
Tracker surprised viewers this week with the incredibly twisty Season 3 finale, “The Best Ones,” which effectively wrote off fan-favorite Russell Shaw for the foreseeable future. Although Jensen Ackles has been a Tracker staple since the first season of the hit CBS drama, it seems that the star has been given an “out” in order to headline his The Boys spin-off prequel, Vought Rising, set to hit Prime Video sometime next year. But while the departure of Russell Shaw may be practical for Ackles’ schedule, it also doubles as an interesting pivot for where the character could go in his own spin-off — whether a full-blown CBS series or a potential Paramount+ event/miniseries.
“The Best Ones” Wrote Russell Shaw Off ‘Tracker’ With Spin-off Potential
“The Best Ones” set up several interesting elements that Tracker Season 4 will have to deal with, but chief among them is everything involving Russell’s untimely (and unceremonious) departure. After Russell confronts McIntyre (Glenn Morshower), the shadowy G-man behind the kill order on the Shaw brothers, the government operative reveals that their father, Ashton Shaw (Lee Tergesen), had experimented on Colter (Justin Hartley) at some point in their youth. Little is known about what those experiments entailed, but considering the entire Chrono Stasis project had to do with remote viewing, astral projection, and the like, it seems likely that Colter may have exhibited some sort of ability that their father wanted to explore. Of course, Colter is in the dark about all of this, and so McIntyre offers Russell a proposition: Either the kill order on the Shaw brothers remains intact and Colter risks discovering what their father did to him, or Russell comes to work for him and can destroy the evidence himself. We know what he chose.
The last we see of Russell, he gives Reenie (Fiona Rene) a call and reveals that he’s going to be gone for quite a while — and he’s not sure when he’ll be back. Anyone who knows anything about backdoor pilots is probably already thinking the same thing we are, namely that this is the perfect time for an Ackles-led spin-off! As Tracker‘s most recurring guest star and arguably fans’ favorite non-main cast member, Ackles is an easy sell for audiences. After four episodes this season with the character and six total, audiences have built a rapport with Russell, making this as good a moment as any to give Ackles his own show. After all, we’re talking about a guy who co-led Supernatural for 15 years and was brought in during the final season of Big Sky (by Tracker showrunner Elwood Reid, we’ll add) to help aid in the show’s declining ratings. These days, the TV star is as much of a draw for viewers as the Russell character, if not more so, and so crafting a spin-off around him would no doubt be successful. The projected success goes up even higher if it’s a miniseries or event series rather than a long-form, multi-season series (though it could certainly evolve into that if there was a demand).
As for what a potential spin-off could entail, it’s all there in “The Best Ones.” Certainly, it would follow Russell on his new covert missions, perhaps with a brand-new tone completely divorced from Tracker‘s usual procedural formula. Under the direction of McIntyre or some other government force, Russell Shaw would be back in the fire. A spin-off could allow us to finally explore the other eras of Russell’s life, from his childhood under the direction of the increasingly erratic Ashton Shaw to the years between his father’s death and his reunion with his brother in Season 1’s “Off the Books.” There are many potential angles through which a Russell-centric Shaw spin-off could tackle the character, and fans would no doubt jump at the chance to see what this Tracker character could do on his own.
Jensen Ackles Would Be the Perfect Frontman for a ‘Tracker’-Adjacent Project
While a 20-something episode Russell Shaw show would be loads of fun, in this day and age, traditional television seasons are slowly fading away. However, since CBS and Paramount+ are so intimately associated, there’s no reason that the character wouldn’t be able to cross over from network television to streaming, almost a reversal of what happened with Luke Grimes‘ Kayce Dutton following his transition from Paramount Network’s Yellowstone to CBS’ Marshals. In this sense, a Russell-focused series could go to places that the Colter Shaw’s series never could, with more mature stories to tell beyond the clear directives of network television’s “Broadcast Standards and Practices.”
We’ve seen what Ackles can do with a network-adjacent streaming series like Countdown, and that tone would work quite well for a Russell-based project. Alternatively, something more intense, like The Terminal List, could be just as strong a basis. However you slice it, Tracker has set up Russell Shaw to ride off on his own adventures. While Colter Shaw will be back to business as usual, CBS would be foolish not to pursue this Russell thread further.
Tracker is available for streaming on Paramount+.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login