Trainwreck: Poop Cruise is a marvel
Let's call it now: this is the best TV show of 2025
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It's been a while! I've been moving house, which has been time-consuming. It's harder to watch TV when you're spending most evenings up to your eyes in boxes, the contents of which do not pass the Swedish death cleaning threshold, and I apologise in advance to any relatives who, upon my demise, will be forced to sort through a box of tickets to extremely tiny shows from the Edinburgh fringe six years ago because I am incapable of throwing anything away.
However, I did manage to make time for Trainwreck: Poop Cruise. This has been hovering around in Netflix's top 10 for a couple of weeks, and for good reason, because frankly it's the best thing that Netflix has put out all year, maybe even in its entire history of original content. Poop Cruise is about the cruise from hell. Though I know many people love them, and part of me thinks they are inherently camp and I might enjoy them for that reason alone, I find the idea of all cruises to be hellish in the first place*. The idea of being stuck in the middle of the ocean, on a gigantic polluting tanker with the sole purpose of organised fun with strangers, makes me want to never go on holiday again. It even puts me off buffets, and I love a buffet.
A lot of people hate the idea of cruises, and Poop Cruise works in part because it proves their suspicions to be correct. Every time there is news of a norovirus outbreak on a cruise ship, a sailing plague vessel full of passengers enduring a vomit-strewn quarantine, I add it to my mental evidence pile of reasons I will never go on a cruise. Poop Cruise is like one of those news stories, but the Cocaine Bear version, enhanced, exaggerated, pushed to its limits. It is basically the plot of a horror film. It's the cabin in the woods, except the woods are the ocean, and the monster is the fact that the toilets are powered by electricity and all of the electricity is off.
According to fun time gal Susan Sontag, "the pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious". Poop Cruise is is not pure camp. It knows that it is a story about a ship full of shit, so, "Considered a little less strictly, Camp is ... wholly conscious (when one plays at being campy.)" Poop Cruise is structured like a horror, and wears the jacket of a documentary, but it is a comedy through and through, playing at being campy. I love its adorable, winking, feral little face.
I love that the Carnival Triumph remains in service but has had to be renamed. I love that this film makes four days at sea feels like 20 years. I am depressed by the idea that everyone loads up their plates with more food than they could possibly eat, in a panic, but then, I tried to buy loo roll in March 2020, so this snapshot of human nature is not surprising.
One day, I hope to attend a midnight singalong screening of this documentary, for its 20th anniversary, perhaps, making my way through crowds dressed up as cruise director Jen, who has somehow not been created by Diane Morgan. Or perhaps as Kalin, Ashley and Jayme, whose hen do goes so very wrong, but who seem mostly amused by their booze-cruise nightmare at sea (Kalin's hungover reaction to the alarm, following the massive engine fire: "I don't feel good, somebody needs to shut it off"). Or Hanna, the bartender who grew up in the Soviet Union, who delivers my favourite line in the whole thing: "I was not in my cabin when the alarm went. You know. It happens."
"Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of "character"," says Sontag. The little Carnival Triumphs, more like. What a documentary. What a time.
* If you do like cruises then I totally get where you're coming from and I suspect you have fewer neuroses than I do.
End Credits
Trainwreck: Poop Cruise is on Netflix.
Notes On Camp, which does manage to pull off the classic Sontag trick of making fun sound not very fun at all.
Watch List
My viewing time is blurring into a Wimbledon-Euros fade right now. If you want an extra layer of sports, I highly recommend Serena Williams: In the Arena, an extremely in-depth eight-parter about the GOAT, now on iPlayer.
Also sort of a bit like sport, I made a start on season two of The Ultimatum: Queer Love (Netflix). Still the most brazenly illogical concept for a reality show - we love each other so much that we're going to test our relationship by trying to have new ones - and still horribly watchable.
Not sure if Who Do You Think You Are (iPlayer) is on anyone's Hot Summer TV '25! list, but speaking of Diane Morgan, make an exception and watch her episode. It's a surreal one, not least because it’s full of her having to do Philomena Cunk-style bits, and making a point about how Cunky they are.
I started to watch season four of The Bear (Disney+), which feels strangely ill-suited to the heatwave we've been having in the UK. It always comes out in summer, and you'd think the sweaty hot tension would suit the sweaty hot tension, but for me, it's feeling more like wintery fireside drama.
What with all the moving and the sport, my to-watch list is getting enormous. Currently, the top priorities: Such Brave Girls (iPlayer), Shifty (iPlayer), Couples Therapy (BBC2/iPlayer).
I noticed that Harlots is now on Netflix. I first watched it when I did my back in, a few years ago, and was prone for two weeks and on very strong painkillers. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen and wrote a piece for the Guardian saying as much. But I've always been a bit scared that it was the tramadol talking, so I haven't been able to bring myself to rewatch it. If you do watch it, please let me know the truth. I can take it.