This is the best thing I've seen in a long, long time. The drama is hitting me like a hammer, because it's *real*, it really happened, and I have no reason to think they needed to embellish anything the Soviets did to botch it as much as possible.

It opens with an old man at his kitchen table, dictating his memoirs into a tape recorder (Cliff Notes: "Man, we really ****ed up!"), then smash-cutting to alarms and sirens in a Homer Simpson control room, "Two years earlier". None of the guages/controls work any more, and the bosses are refusing to believe the reports they're getting (just like "Titanic", everyone thinks the reports must be mistaken, because what they're saying just isn't possible).

There's plenty of real-life "1984" stuff, because that's how these folks lived back then: if an Authority from The State says there's no danger, then stop worrying and carry on...and they DO!!!

A nuc professor is called in to a high-level meeting, just like Jack Ryan in Red October, the only guy who plainly sees what's right in front of them--but again, this was REAL! This dude has to listen to Gorbachev being briefed with, "It's NBD, we got it under control," then he has two seconds to summon to courage say, "NO! The State is wrong, and if they stay wrong, millions will die!"...and he has to say this--The Soviet State is spreading misinformation--to FREAKING GORBACHEV, about one minute after meeting him!

This is all just a tiny, tiny fraction of the drama. There's so much more, but before spoiling any more, I'd rather give you guys a day or two to catch up so we can start discussing this show each week as the new eps air. They've only aired two eps, shouldn't take you long.

I don't start many OOTV threads--have I steered you guys wrong yet?

+1

AFAIK the only real departure from history is that Emily Watson's character is a composite of several scientists, every other character with lines so far is a real person doing what they really did.

Agree that this is the best thing I’ve seen in quite some time, at least so far. I’ve been glued to the screen for the first two episodes. I don’t think I’ve seen anything negative on the show from any viewer or critic.

I wondered about composite characters, especially after dude was like, "I didn't realize those tanks were full."

I'm like, "guess letting one guy quarterback the response was a bad idea! The first time another physicist shows up, she sees the fatal flaw... Oh wait, these GOTTA be composites!"

Fantastic so far. Jared Harris is terrific...just like he was in another astounding show, The Terror.

I was looking forward to angrily clicking on “cancel subscription” after the GoT finale, but I’m keeping it for this. Absolutely phenomenal show!!!

My OH and I were wondering about this as we were watching it but hadn't got round to reading about it. Wow.

Also something I just saw on Twitter, 400 rubles(the ANNUAL raise offered for the suicide mission) was ~$250 in dollars, so like $500-600 in today's money.

The thing I learned that surprised me was how close this place is to where people actually live. I always thought it was out in the middle of nowhere, like Siberia or something. It's <60 miles from Kiev, the 7th largest city in Europe, population almost 3M.

Is $500-600 in today's money a lot or a little in 1980s USSR?

Like Legasov says at the very beginning: everything about it was madness.

On the first day they sent people on the roof with almost no protection and a shovel to clean the graphite up (lol). The shifts lasted 90 seconds. Just like the firemen, helicopter pilots, construction workers etc these people were standing right next to an exploded reactor, that had direct contact with the atmosphere. It's inconceivable.

Just wait til they build this huge confinement within a few months, trying desperately to safe Europe. There were no plans how to do this, they just did it, because it needed to be done. Some of the workers were volunteers, many of them died from acute radiation sickness.

It's considered one of the most "heroic" construction sites in human history.

same

It's killing me not to read up on this story, and to wait for this show to educate me on "How on earth did they contain this? How many had to die to do it?"

All i know about radiation poisoning was John Cusack in Fatman and Little Boy...if that's our baseline, these Chernobyl folks look like they're in for about 10,000x that.

I cant wait any more for you guys to catch up, I want to start talking about this show! I'll put this post in a Spoiler box, this is the point you can stop scrolling if you've heard enough praise and want to watch the first two eps spoiler-free!

You've been warned! This is the last Spoiler box ITT.

Also, I can't believe the "How does a nuclear reactor work?" exposition was actually simple enough to be understood by dopes like me. GOAT exposition, imo.

This is outstanding!

the accompanying podcast with the show creator Craig Mazin, who did the Scary Movies and Hangover sequels prior to this, is very good. Gives additional info and detail

Thanks!

Yeah, I always assumed this was out in Siberia or somewhere. When they started talking about Germany and Sweeden, I had to pause it and look at the map. That also led me to learn about Pripyat, which is fascinating.

Wow I didn't know about the possibility of the 20 Megaton thermic explosion. I knew that if they hadn't cover the thing it would have kept spitting out radioactive material. But that the whole thing could have gone off at some point and make an area with 60 Million people in it uninhabitable is pretty jaw-dropping. I can't even imagine the wider consequences had that happened; it would have caused a huge refugee crisis for starters, and I guess the SU would have collapsed on the spot.

Also great TV show.

Watching this and will continue to so its not bad, but all the British accents from what should be people speaking Russian just distracts me and takes me so far out of the show its hard to like it too much.

lol

The opposite is the case. It was genius to not force them to use bad fake accents.

Should have just done the show in Russian and put subtitles. Or used Russian actors so the accents wouldn't be "fake".