Chernobyl (HBO Mini Series)
 

I have watched the first episode and i liked it.I like the "vibe" of the sovietic 80"s and the HBO people got it right.the cast is phenomenal and i think the series will be very good.has anybody watched this?

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

Looking forward to this though The NY Times gave it a very tepid review.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

This show is AWESOME. Episode 2 just introduced the character that is supposed to serve as the stand-in for the hundreds of scientists that were pushing on the government to acknowledge the severity of the issue. And so far they have done an amazing job capturing the essence of Soviet Russia (i.e. trust the State because the State knows all).

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

why hasn't more people been in here praising this series?!?!?! i just watched the first 3 episodes yesterday, TWICE: once by myself, and again when my husband got home. it's so damn good. well shot, well acted, perfect score.... and absolutely devastating. damn. more thoughts when i'm caught up (i think they aired episode 4 last night, and i have yet to watch it)

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

I really enjoy it. I don’t usually jump on television shows that early, but the praise got me interested. And indeed, it’s quite sublime. Love it so far.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

Last night’s episode was a nail-biter. The tension was palpable and I was legit freaking out. Fair warning: if you like pets episode 4 is tough. But what got me was them sending men out onto the roof top to clean up radioactive material. My heart almost stopped at the thought of it.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

I was poor and raising small children when this happened. I remember hearing about it, but watching this series now (with my nuke-plant-worker husband, no less) is sobering. It's chilling just how close they got to annihilating most of eastern Europe.

And it's amazing to see just how little regulation there was. Our nuke plants here are regulated up the wazoo for every little thing. You can barely sneeze there without two or three backup personnel. :D

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

Not that it means much, but it's currently rated at #1 on IMDB's Top TV shows.

1. Chernobyl
2. Planet Earth 2
3. Band of Brothers
4. Planet Earth
5. Breaking Bad
6. Game of Thrones
7. The Wire
8. Our PLanet
9. Cosmos
10. Blue Planet 2

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

It's just crazy how this accident was the perfect storm: unsafe reactor design + operators with no knowledge of unsafe design + safety test that should never have been run = BIG BOOM.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

I've done the 3rd episode of this and I am really struggling. I prefer fiction to non fiction, and even though it is good to see what really went on - it is doing my head in. Jessie Buckley and Emily Watson are doing Russian accents - Finchy from the Office is doing his normal Leeds drawl, and Mikhail Gorbychev sounds like he hails from just outside Guildford. Awful. Why couldn't they have just cast Russians? and done subtitles? I keep being taken out of the world they are putting me in because I see Russian words everywhere - on gravestones and buildings etc - I need subtitles for these as I want to know what they say!

[sorry to generalise here] - I assume it's because America might have not tuned in - but the irony is that with so many accents - half americans might need subtitles anyway. Missed opportunity.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

Been watching it since it premiered. Thought the first 3 episodes were nearly perfect but the 4th showed a few chinks in the armor. Really didn't like them concentrating so much on one aspect of the clean up. I get why they showed it but the amount of time spent on it was unnecessary. Four episodes in and that's my only complaint.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

@ScarletLion while I enjoy it I definitely agree that this should have been in Russian and with a Russian cast. It is odd with all the accents but personally I got over it pretty quickly. A shame though.

Russians probably wouldn't want to be in it and would be frowned upon for doing so. Especially an American production that negatively portrays (rightly so) the Soviet Union. There was a bit of fuss years ago when Olga Karylenko (prob spelt wrong) was in James Bond.

Loving the series, helping with my rehabilitation after Thrones. Quite tragic the human cost of it all, the mental health of the poor soldiers killing dogs this week, the newborn death, soldiers used as cannon fodder.

Best TV show in ages, and as someone too young to know much about the disaster its educational, a bit like Manhunt Unabomber on Netflix.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

i really, really wish they had put some kind of content warning on the last episode. i cried for hours after it was done, not even joking. that was horrible. :(

I think I would have got over it quickly, if some of the cast weren't speaking in Russian accents. Why are they doing that? Someone should have really laid some ground rules that were consistent across the board.

Yeah, I heard - after trying with Russian accents all over - that it didn't work, because too many of the actors and actresses focused on getting the accent right and thereby ruining their performance. The cast were much more authentic without it.

But why some still held on to it, I don't know. Luckily it ain't so thick as far as I remember, but even though I'm currently watching I'm unsure. I'll listen extra carefully with the next episode...

But the different nationalities of the actors definitely plays a role as well. Their english is very different from each other.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

The accents don't bother me, and I haven't even noticed them.

I watched this the other night. A reminder of how truly horrific that tragic event was. I also recently watched a documentary on Chernobyl on CuriosityStream I found more enlightening, offering computer graphic reenactments how the tragedy came about. There were heroes who sacrificed their lives knowing they were going on a suicide mission to save thousands.

That said, the HBO series is engaging and delivers the human drama the documentary lacks. Watching the documentary first then the HBO series makes for a more complete experience with the two shows combined as companion pieces.

I was lucky enough to have just watched the documentary a few days before even being aware of the HBO series. So having a fresh recall of "just the facts, ma'am", it gave the series' drama and debate more substance.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

So good. Ended really strong. Just tremendous all the way through. Really impressed by how they made certain facts feel like mysteries.

Like so many of these things, I knew the broad strokes, but the details are what really make it fascinating. The what-might-have-beens and the things people did to prevent them from coming to pass.

It's both inspiring and horrifying how much flesh the Russian people were willing to throw at this problem to stop it from blotting out an even larger portion of the world.

Re: Chernobyl-HBO Mini Series
 

The hardest part was reading the stuff on the screen at the end. Death toll? Anywhere from 4,000 to 93,000. (Seriously? Wow, nothing like a really general range of numbers.)

But the official USSR death toll, even to this day? 31.

THIRTY-FREAKING-ONE. I yelled "Wow!" at the screen at that.

That was the scariest part: that so much of this was a perfect storm of bad design, lack of proper training, and peer pressure (from the government, from supervisors...). And that there were a bunch of other poorly designed plants in the USSR at that time... and they didn't immediately rush to fix those, all because that would have meant admitting mistakes.

Egad.