While everyone’s watching the latest “Game of Thrones”, the Chernobyl series went unnoticed. Not the one you saw on TNT, but from HBO. Only the first two episodes are out, but it’s already clear from them that it’s a must-watch.
The first episode was an excellent reconstruction of the initial days of the tragedy. The authenticity meter was off the charts: the Americans managed to capture the tiniest details of the era without veering into “Hollywood”, catering to the tastes and expectations of the mainstream audience. Even the actors are astonishingly similar to their real-life counterparts. The second episode was slightly less coherent, but it still didn’t spoil the overall impression.
Importantly, before the release of the HBO film, there was almost nothing worth watching. The 2004 Discovery documentary drama was too staged, and the Polish-Ukrainian “Chernobyl: 30 Years Later” was terribly made, with a million repetitions of text and images, and a single message: “nuclear power plants are evil”.
Whether intentionally or not, the theme of the conflict at the station before the accident was completely omitted. Perhaps the scriptwriters did not find the facts compelling enough, or they had reasons not to consider them as facts. Dyatlov maintained until his death that the cause was technical, while station workers unanimously blamed him. From a dramatic standpoint, there was a lot to add to the first episode, but HBO rightly decided not to turn the episode into trivial sensationalism, focusing instead on other aspects.
Enjoy watching 🙂
P.S. Now let’s see our version on TNT.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 