HBO Chernobyl, HBO/Sky

[Emelee]

A five-part miniseries about the horrific man-made catastrophe where a nuclear power plant reactor exploded in USSR (today's Ukraine) back in 1986. Over 30 years later, people can't enter the zone without safety equipment and a tour guide. It's said that people won't be able to live there for thousands of years because of the radiation.

The series stars Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Emily Watson, Paul Ritter, Jessie Buckley, David Dencik etc. as both real and fictional characters.

Premieres May 6.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

As grim as I know this will be, I'm really looking forward to it. It has a great cast and that trailer is so haunting.

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

I'm looking forward to this too, but i already know it will terrify me like hell... watching things based on reality like this to me is way more horrific than any horror movie could ever be....

 

[Emelee]

Saw the first episode today, and it didn´t disappoint. Terrific actors, anxiety mood over the actions taken, the music, the colour scale and all the 80s stuff. And that Cold War feeling. Maester Lewin from Game of Thrones with his speech, the civilians standing there looking at how beautiful the sky looked, the hierarchy forcing people to sacrifice themselves and all the immediate injuries. When those dosimeters measured more than maximum röntgen/second, they just assumed the dosimeters didn't work.

And of course, a cover-up story followed.

I've read that the rest of Europe didn't know for days what had happened at Chernobyl, but there were signs that something was off:

Evacuation began long before the accident was publicly acknowledged by the Soviet Union. In the morning of 28 April, radiation levels set off alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) from the Chernobyl Plant. Workers at Forsmark reported the case to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, which determined that the radiation had originated elsewhere. That day, the Swedish government contacted the Soviet government to inquire about whether there had been a nuclear accident in the Soviet Union. The Soviet government initially denied it, and it was only after the Swedish government suggested they were about to file an official alert with the IAEA, that the Soviet government admitted an accident took place at Chernobyl. At first, the Soviets only conceded that a minor accident had occurred, but once they began evacuating over 100,000 people, the full-scale of the situation was realized by the global community.

At 21:02 the evening of 28 April, a 20-second announcement was read in the TV news programme Vremya:

There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of the accident are being remedied. Assistance has been provided for any affected people. An investigative commission has been set up.

— Vremya, 28 April 1986 (21:00)

 

[pete lashmar]

I've watched the first 2 episodes and it's a good solid drama.

What I liked most is that they didn't do a huge build up to the fire/core opening, it was pretty much instant from the beginning so we were able to just throw ourselves into it.

Yes it's grim, but it's also hugely important for people to see what happened, how it happened and why it was such a cataclysmic event.

I will now wait for the next 3 episodes to air and watch them all back to back - gripping stuff.

 

[Michael Torrance]

I found it both engrossing and infuriating for the cavalier attitude those in charge had toward the lives of everyday workers, respondents, etc. What was also interesting was that while a lot of the criminal rejection of reality happened because those in charge were soviet bureaucracy systemically opposed to any truth, the original such denial of reality came from people who were scientists, and refused to accept the reality on the ground not because they were soviets, but because it contradicted their theoretical knowledge.

 

[Emelee]

It's a huge hit. Current IMDB score 9.6 and it feels like "everyone" is talking about it. I want the dvd now.

https://people.com/tv/hbo-hit-miniseries-chernobyl-explained/

I still can't believe all this happened for real. It's a grim nightmare. Almost Kafka-like.

 

[Michael Torrance]

The show is somberly devastating. Somehow I don't feel like praising it with the usual positive adjectives given the (real) horror it portrays.

 

[Emelee]

Russian HBO critics wants to make their own Chernobyl series, which should focus on American spies who caused the accident, presumably on purpose.

https://news.avclub.com/russia-hates-hbos-chernobyl-vows-to-make-its-own-serie-1835298424

 

[Michael Torrance]

Russian HBO critics wants to make their own Chernobyl series, which should focus on American spies who caused the accident, presumably on purpose.

https://news.avclub.com/russia-hates-hbos-chernobyl-vows-to-make-its-own-serie-1835298424

That is amazing news--I always thought a sci-fi treatment would have been very appropriate.

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

It was very good, but the problem i have with this show is that the "want to rewatch"-factor equals ZERO. I highly doubt i would ever want to watch it again, so i won't get the bluray set.

 

[Emelee]

It was very good, but the problem i have with this show is that the "want to rewatch"-factor equals ZERO. I highly doubt i would ever want to watch it again, so i won't get the bluray set.

I want to rewatch, but I understand what you mean. There are many series (and films for that matter) that I absolutely loved, but feel I will never rewatch. Sometimes I loved something so much that I did buy the dvd, and then never watched it. Those dvds are merely dust collectors now. I don't even watch if they are on TV.

 

[Emelee]

The Russian Ministry of Culture are spending 30 million Rubel on the Russian version of Chernobyl. It will be about KGB-agents hunting the CIA-agent who was at the nuclear power plant when the 'accident' happened.

Political propaganda strikes again.