3 Mile Island (Netflix documentary)

BUDFORCE · 17 May 2022 at 14:26

Anyone seen this?

I'm 3 of 4 episodes in, probably watch the last one this evening.

I'd never heard of this before, but seems it was a pretty near miss of being similar to Chernobyl, basically sheer luck over anything that it wasn't.

I appreciate the documentary will be hammed up for maximum theatrical effect, but still pretty interesting and plenty of old footage.

Robzere31 · 17 May 2022 at 14:35

I remember it being in the news when I was a kid, but back then didn't really understand or appreciate what it was.

GlitterBalls · 17 May 2022 at 16:37

I only found out about it a few weeks ago when I was watching Viva La Bam. Bam and his friends were on the island then I looked up what happened there.

Street · 18 May 2022 at 14:48

I started watching this last night. I know of it, but know very little else about what happened so should be an interesting watch.

Hagar · 18 May 2022 at 15:41

I remember it happening, well after they had resolved it and released some information. Was it not the basis of a Jane Fonda film. Yes, 'The China Syndrome'. I think.

kinetic747 · 19 May 2022 at 10:36

Hagar said:
I remember it happening, well after they had resolved it and released some information. Was it not the basis of a Jane Fonda film. Yes, 'The China Syndrome'. I think.

Unbelievably, I believe the China Syndrome was released a few months before this happened, very prophetic.

Simon0001 · 19 May 2022 at 14:47

It was worse than Chernobyl. It's just America is too small to annex the land.

n111ck · 19 May 2022 at 15:31

Simon0001 said:
It was worse than Chernobyl. It's just America is too small to annex the land.

Lol no it wasn't - not even close - unless you think TMI is now contained within a giant sarcophagus and no-one can live in the vicinity...

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 19 May 2022 at 17:50

I watched it, I remember people mentioned it when I was a kid but fell out of the conscious I think for most, especially when Chernobyl happened
I suspect it was behind a lot of the anti nuke type stuff that was going on when I was young, I know it was mainly weapon focussed but it spilled over into power stations since the early ones were basically just weapons factories

Simon0001 · 19 May 2022 at 17:50

n111ck said:
Lol no it wasn't - not even close - unless you think TMI is now contained within a giant sarcophagus and no-one can live in the vicinity...

That's exactly my point. It should be.

ianh · 19 May 2022 at 23:27

Simon0001 said:
That's exactly my point. It should be.

Why?

The levels of radiation in the local area were low initially and have stayed low, the more radioactive waste material from the reactor was removed by the DoE 40+ years ago so there's little to no "extra" radiation making the island uninhabitable etc so I'm not sure why it should have a $2+ Billion sarcophagus added, unless you're aware of something we (the general public) don't know about the levels of radiation there?

Simon0001 · 19 May 2022 at 23:44

You believe that? Try a pre Tmi Geiger counter.

The UK is the same since sellafield

BUDFORCE · 20 May 2022 at 08:11

I remember going to the little visitor center at Sellafield years ago, there was a thing on the wall there that said something like "the increased cases of lukemia in the local area were caused by viruses brought in by migrant workers".

Uh huh............

jpaul · 20 May 2022 at 08:56

I'd read the imdb reviews, first confirming it was not the same director as chernobyl, which would have enticed me,
the comments on anti-nuclear agenda put me off and I categorised it with other edgy netflix productions like seaspiracy, itself criticized for truth.

I'll look out for the PBS programme about 3 mile island that I think would be more objective - they have lots of good stuff.

ianh · 20 May 2022 at 22:02

I watched the first episode, some very good interviews with 1st hand witnesses and some good dramatisation.

It's fairly obvious it's heavily slanted towards being "anti-nuclear" which is very understandable given the incident they're covering, but quite a few times the editing veers away from documentary style "these are the facts" into current year MSM style "we'll edit unrelated parts together to tell you this is how you should feel". So for example at the start there is a voice over of US President Harry Truman gravely discussing dropping the first Atomic bombs on Japan saying "it is an awful responsibility which has come to us" but yet showing a different clip of him laughing wduring his serious voice over - that kind of dishonest editing is just an instant red flag towards "this isn't a documentary, it's propaganda" and just in the first episodes there's quite a few little edits like that.

Despite that the use of original footage is extremely hard hitting and most of the good stuff in the documentary, especially watching the Governor slowly realise in real time that both the company involved, and the Government regulator agency which is supposed to monitor it, are starting to cover things up, repeatedly swap their stories around and "lie by omission" i.e. you didn't ask so I didn't say etc.

I'll catch up with the rest over the weekend I think.

Semple · 21 May 2022 at 11:23

Just watched the first episode. Was pretty good, less of a drama series like Chernobyl was, but a good number of reenactments to demonstrate what was going on - sometimes I find just watching interviews can get a bit boring.