Netflix Explores Headline-Making Events in New Series

Trainwreck, a new docuseries exploring headline-making events, is set to bow on Netflix on June 10, with new episodes dropping weekly.

The first of eight episodes delves into the tragedy that took place at Travis Scott’s third Astroworld music festival in November 2021, when event security personnel struggled to manage the 50,000-plus crowd and a crowd crush resulted in several fatalities.

“The Astroworld Tragedy” is produced by Passion Pictures.

On June 17, “Mayor of Mayhem,” from RAW and BBH, delves into the 2010 Toronto mayoral election, when city councilor Rob Ford unexpectedly joined the nominees. Though he was dismissed as a joke by other politicians and the media, he scored a shocking victory—only for his administration to become a slow-motion disaster, struggling with scandals and allegations of hard drug use.

“Poop Cruise,” also produced by RAW, details the story of a four-day round trip luxury cruise that set sail from Galveston, Texas, for Cozumel, Mexico. After an engine room fire destroyed electrical cables supplying the entire ship, the boat was left drifting with no power for propulsion, refrigeration, lighting, air conditioning or flushing toilets. Raw sewage began leaking all over the ship, food supplies started to dwindle and passengers began to revolt.

In “The Cult of American Apparel,” the rise and fall of the fashion brand is studied. In the mid-2000s, American Apparel became one of the U.S.’s most successful fashion brands and was a place for young staffers to be part of a cult-like company revolutionizing the fashion industry and learn from the charismatic CEO and founder, Dov Charney. As the brand expanded, however, Charney’s chaotic management started to hit the company’s finances, and he was accused of sexual harassment by female employees. RAW and BBH produced this episode.

“The Real Project X” episode, also from RAW and BBH, details the events of a 2012 party in the Netherlands. A teenage girl in the small Netherlands town of Haren created a Facebook event for her 16th bitrthday party, she accidentally made the page public instead of private. Inspired by a love for the Hollywood movie Project X, Dutch teenagers made the event go viral, and thousands of people RSVP’d. Though they had warnings, police and local authorities didn’t think anyone would turn up and thus were unprepared for the masses of young people who arrived in the small town.

RAW and BBH also produced “Balloon Boy,” which goes back to October 15, 2009, when a father in Colorado called 911 and claimed that his homemade dirigible had escaped from the family backyard, carrying his 6-year-old son inside. The claim was backed up by footage from a news helicopter, and what started as a local emergency became a national one, with everyone from the local sheriff’s department to the National Guard scrambling to come up with a way to safely rescue the boy. When the balloon softly lands, they discover that no boy is inside, and public sympathy quickly turned to outrage.

“P.I. Moms,” meanwhile, delves into the story behind a reality TV series commissioned by Lifetime in 2010. The series centered on a private investigation agency staffed by soccer moms, and everyone was convinced it would be a big hit. The production crew started to notice something was off, however—their investigations kept falling apart. At the same time, a mysterious informant accused the agency’s boss of running an illegal drug operation on the side, abetted by a corrupt cop.

The eighth episode, “Storm Area 51,” explores the story of a “shitpost” on Facebook made by a 20-year-old inviting people to storm the heavily secured Air Force facility Area 51 in the Nevada desert. The post went viral, with hundreds and then thousands of people saying they’d join the event. The U.S. Air Force, FBI and Federal Aviation Administration strongly advised against anyone illegally trying to access the base, but the post continued to go viral, with millions signing up to attend.

The seventh and eighth episodes are also produced by RAW and BBH.