Mate, I remember when this event was current news, not just a TV show. I watched live reports on it.
Not one single scientist qualified in any relevant field was making dire predictions about most of Europe being uninhabitable for more than a century. Ignorant politicians might have made nonsensical claims of this sort, but not anyone with professional expertise.
That's why the misrepresentation really grinds my gears.
I appreciate that the thrust of the series is more about the government's response than the actual events themselves, but that's still no excuse for bad science.
How much of that was damage and panic control though? I see your point 100% but the show itself mentions how the Soviets tried to cover it all up due to the cold war, space race, etc. I'm not convinced this was a case of "no predictions", I suspect a huge aspect of this was also the Soviets playing it down by not wanting the world to know how bad their screwup was. I don't want to give too much away but the Soviets were under the impression that the radiation wasn't that bad, when in reality they only thought this because their geiger-counters only went so high and maxed out. When they brought in more accurate equipment they got a real sense of the scale, and it was on a whole different level to what they thought.
You could well be right, these are details I've never really spent much time considering but I'd need concrete evidence to rule anything out. At the end of the day this was the era of the KGB, the iron curtain, propaganda, as much as I think the show tries to portray things as they happened, this will no doubt be diluted by decades of eroded opinions, misinterpreted facts, chinese whispers, etc. Aiming for 100% accuracy would be nigh-on impossible, I suspect nobody really knows the completely accurate story.
I maintain my original point though, you're selling yourself short by not watching it.
