Oscar Kennedy boards the Sacramentum as Jamie Walsh, a 19-year-old steward who swaps identity papers with a dead friend to hunt the masked figure in a duck costume who murdered his sister mid-voyage. Creator Ryan J. Brown keeps the body-count rising through crew-only corridors, pastel nightclubs and life-raft drills while Jamie and roommate Thaddea Graham’s cynical Vivian dodge both a slasher and the homophobia baked into ship life. The duck-mask killer, later revealed to be part of a wider human-trafficking ring fronted by the entertainment staff, turns the floating village into a claustrophobic maze where safety drills double as slaughter.
Brown wrote the six-part first season in 2021 for BBC Three after Euston Films green-lit what he pitched as “a queer Friday the 13th on a cruise liner”, insisting that Jamie and Vivian’s sexuality drive plot rather than supply trauma shorthand. The show premiered 9 October 2022 and, despite mixed broadsheet notices, landed on multiple LGBTQ+ best-of lists including Attitude and Gay Times for foregrounding camp kills next to tender hook-ups in housekeeping closets. A second six-episode run, released 26 March 2024, upped the ante to a private island and added corporate blackmail before the BBC quietly cancelled the series on 10 April 2024, leaving twelve 45-minute episodes adrift on iPlayer.
Production Details
BBC Three / 2 Seasons / 12 Episodes / 2022 - Present
Created by: Ryan J. Brown
Showrunner(s): Noemi Spanos, Chris Baugh, Heather Larmour
Writer(s): Ryan J. Brown
Producer(s): Brendan Mullin
Main Cast
Oscar Kennedy as Jamie Walsh
Thaddea Graham as Vivian Lim
Alice Nokes as Sophia Leigh
Peter Claffey as Cormac Kelly
Miya Ocego as Rosie Preston
Jodie Tyack as Pippa Walsh
Amber Grappy as Lauren Thompson
Warren Sollars as Officer T. Beaker
Anthony Rickman as Olly Reyes
Harriet Webb as Karen MacIntyre
Louis Boyer as Sam Rhodes
James Phoon as Hamish
