Chernobyl miniseries - coming to Sky and HBO in May 2019

Soldato
Joined
11 Jun 2015
Posts
11,088
Location
Bristol
Cracking last episode. Very moving dialogue between Boris and Legasov. Loved the way they created the character of Ulana to represent all of the scientists that worked with Legasov. And especially that they called it out specifically. Nice touch.
That scene on the bench was one of the best things I've seen in a long time.
 

Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

How might this series affect the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games...?
I've never played them, but I'm now wondering if it's a little weird to have one set in Pripyat, as it's still within living memory...?
Call of Duty 4 was famous for having a scene set in Chernobyl. I remember playing it (having known and studied the disaster years ago) and getting chills but the show has made me want to go back and play it again.

 
Soldato
Joined
14 Sep 2009
Posts
9,200
Location
Northumberland
Call of Duty 4 was famous for having a scene set in Chernobyl. I remember playing it...

Captain Macmillan: 50,000 people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town. :D

The city itself is Pripyat, which was built for the workers at the Chernobyl plant. Seen numerous docs on it, really need to give this a watch.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Nov 2005
Posts
12,444

That's absolutely mental that 25 years later, that tiny fragment just hiding in the dirt is still giving off so much radiation and it's only spent fuel (I assume the actual fuel in the core was/is way more radioactive ?)

Going to Chernobyl and handling SMALL pieces of nuclear fuel (like what is shown) is pretty safe relative to some everyday risks people take, like driving or eating cured meats or smoking. My whole-body dose equivalent from external radiation for this trip did not exceed 10 mrem, which is too small to be associated with meaningfully-quantifiable health risks. If one DID extrapolate a risk to this dose using risk models, though, it would be about as risky (in terms of death by cancer) as smoking 1.5 cigarettes. The highways in Ukraine are far more dangerous than Chernobyl radiation!
 
Soldato
Joined
26 May 2009
Posts
22,100
Just reading a book by a Ukrainian chap called Serhii Plokhy titled ‘Chernobyl - History of Disaster’ and from reading that, it seems that Briukhanov gets a bit of a raw deal in the series. Apparently he was quite softly spoken and well liked according to the book, but the series portrays him as a bit of a blowhard douchebag. Dunno whether that can be attributed to artistic licence or a differing source as to his character.
It is worth noting that for the guilty three we meet them at their worst, yes they made terrible decisions and yes they killed a lot of people, but as for the decisions they made and the way they acted it was them at their very very worst, all at the same time.

Dyatlov was reportedly never a nice person but on the day he blew up the reactor he was himself at 1000% presumably due to the pressure of wanting to impress Bryukhanov and Fomin. When he left reactor 4's control room and walked to the reactor 3 control room to hit the reactor 4 AZ5 from there (each control room could also kill the other three reactors) he walked past the glowing graphite debris and ignored it, completely convinced he could never make such a mistake, even when he survayed the outside before briefing Bryukhanov and Fomin he ignored the scattered graphite and fuel before his eyes.

Fomin was reportedly quite a nice person when not feeling the pressure, however on the day he too refused to believe what was happening, he too refused to see the graphite before him, even after Dyatlov left he ignored the engineers telling him the truth even sending Sitnikov up to get a look from above after personally witnessing the graphite debris on the ground (and then refusing to believe what Sitnikov told him). He even ordered Bagdasarov (reactor 3 shift chief) to keep his adjacent reactor running despite the fact his roof was also on fire from the explosion and his men were succumbing to radiation sickness.

Briukhanov is something as a paradox as he was the one that pushed hardest for the test that caused the disaster but also the one who had the least involvement with it, however at the end of the day it was his reactor and it was ultimately he who green lit the test. In fairness to the man he was lied to by Akimov (still scared of Dyatlov and unwilling to admit to himself what had happened) then by Dyatlov himself, however he along with Fomin refused to believe Sitnikov about what he saw from the roof (the fact Briukhanov had no desire to look for himself however may imply he did believe him but wanted to maintain plausible deniability).

In all, the three of them got of light for what they did but what they did was them at their very worst, Dyatlov is probably the only one who could really be classified as a terrible person, the other two merely made bad decisions for the pursuit of greed/power then doubled down on them out of fear/pride.


Sorry, when I said Chernobyl I meant Pripyat by implication.
It's kinda interesting that Pripyat had a population of 50,000, yet the city they built to replace it immediately after the accident only ever reached 25,000. I guess the returning/new workers were less interested in bringing their families to live near Chernobyl (it's only 50km from the plant).


It really is quite scary how millennials are turning out.
I've seen a number of them complaining that the show should never have used the actual fire dept call in the first episode because it's offensive (no idea to whom) >.>
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
16 Mar 2004
Posts
13,474
Location
UK
Fire dept call? That's nothing, there's a Russian war film that used actual audio from a beheading of a Russian soldier by Chechens in one of its scenes.
 
Caporegime
Joined
29 Dec 2007
Posts
31,991
Location
Adelaide, South Australia
Oh dear, the Russians aren't coping well with a cold hard dose of reality. In typical fashion, they're desperate to blame Chernobyl on everyone but themselves. Here's a rare red-pilled Russian journalist facing up to the facts:

It seems every major Russian media outlet had to chime in about the “Chernobyl” TV series by HBO. Although the foreign program airs only online to paying viewers, the show has become something of a national sensation in Russia where the pro-Kremlin media have launched a mini-crusade against it.

Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP), Russia’s most popular newspaper, raised suspicions that competitors of state-atomic center Rosatom were using the series to tarnish this country’s image as a nuclear power.

...Russia’s NTV channel has already announced that it is shooting its own “Chernobyl” series based on the premise that the CIA sent an agent to the Chernobyl zone to carry out acts of sabotage.

As justification for the story, the film’s director, Alexei Muradov, cited fringe conspiracy theorists: “One theory holds that Americans had infiltrated the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and many historians do not deny that, on the day of the explosion, an agent of the enemy’s intelligence services was present at the station.”

...The fact that an American, not a Russian, TV channel tells us about our own heroes is a source of shame that the pro-Kremlin media apparently cannot live down. And this is the real reason they find fault with HBO’s “Chernobyl” series.

(Source).
 
Soldato
Joined
8 Jun 2013
Posts
4,363
"The fact that an American, not a Russian, TV channel tells us about our own heroes is a source of shame "
interesting comment. years back, I got into an argument w/ a guy at work about the film "U-571" and the Enigma machines etc. He was ranting about how the US had made it and bigged up their involvement etc etc and was morally outraged. I said it was our history, we've got all the film studios, actors/actresses, funding and writers ourselves and no one had bothered doing anything about this fascinating and dramatic piece of our history, so we had no right to whine when someone else makes the effort.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Nov 2005
Posts
12,444
Not that I'll be alive, but every 100 years they have to build a bigger structure until science finds a better way of dealing with it.

It'll be interesting what they come up with at Fukushima as at least at Chernobyl they don't have to worry about Earthquakes & Tsunami's

I saw this on our own waste disposal


It's worrying that our only solution is to bury the problem under steel and concrete
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Aug 2005
Posts
22,947
Location
Glasgow
How might this series affect the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games...?
I've never played them, but I'm now wondering if it's a little weird to have one set in Pripyat, as it's still within living memory...?

It won't. If anything they might see a bit of a surge in sales as a result but I'm not sure how an HBO mini-series suddenly makes the games a less pleasant prospect.
 
Associate
Joined
14 Sep 2009
Posts
1,867
Location
Accrington, Lancashire
It was some sight seeing the actual scale of the thing in person, I don't think it wasn't even half built the last time I'd visited and the people harnessed up working on the outer structure were like ants in comparison.

It's truly an eye opening experience going there. The hardships the people have faced is awful, but dedication and spirit is unbelievable.

Pripyat is a weird one, it's such an odd feeling the first time you go there. The thing that always stuck with me was how quiet it is, standing alone in such a built up area with dead silence just goes against what your brain expects. Was even stranger having played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games in the past and already half knowing my way around going off certain landmarks.
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Aug 2005
Posts
22,947
Location
Glasgow
It was some sight seeing the actual scale of the thing in person, I don't think it wasn't even half built the last time I'd visited and the people harnessed up working on the outer structure were like ants in comparison.

It's truly an eye opening experience going there. The hardships the people have faced is awful, but dedication and spirit is unbelievable.

Pripyat is a weird one, it's such an odd feeling the first time you go there. The thing that always stuck with me was how quiet it is, standing alone in such a built up area with dead silence just goes against what your brain expects. Was even stranger having played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games in the past and already half knowing my way around going off certain landmarks.

I've been wanting to visit for years, later this year was looking like the time I'd finally be able to do it as I've finally been given a permanent contract at work, but I suspect it'll be far busier now this series has brought it to attention for so many.
 
Back
Top Bottom