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If you haven't watched Chernobyl on HBO/Sky/NowTV, you should. It's an excellent mini-series. I've rewatched it 2 or 3 times already. Jared Harris does an exce

If you haven't watched Chernobyl on HBO/Sky/NowTV, you should. It's an excellent mini-series. I've rewatched it 2 or 3 times already. Jared Harris does an excellent job playing Legasov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)

shakow 4y ago
I'm not fond of the serie, to be honest. The actors are stellar, but there are such liberties taken with basic physics (the steam explosion supposedly ventilating half of Europe, the baby protecting the mother from radiations, ...) that it seems to me that they were this close to have a great thing, and they just made useless melodrama out of it.
- hef19898 4y ago
  The baby thing wasn't necessaey, as was some of the stuff at the end of the last episode, e.g. the bridge of death. After all so, it is entertainment. They also took some liberty with the timeline when it comes to the evacuation of Prypyat. The steam explosion, and the fear ofbhaving the melted core dropping into the groundwater, actually were real concerns at the time. Concerns that were acted upon rather decisevly, by sending divers under the reactor and by having miners installing a heat exchanges by hand. That those concerns might not have been valod, well, that's 20/20 hindsight isn't it?
  - shakow 4y ago
    They were valid concerns, but I don't think anyone seriously thought it would have an amplitude such as described in the serie. The whole affair is dramatic enough that there is no need to graft on some sensational, over-the-top, fantasies.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      If memory serves well, it is a while I read the Chernobyl reports (Soviet and IAEA), they actually did think that might happen. After all, it was the forst time something of this magnitide happened ever, so nobody knew anything for sure. And one thing is sure, the Soviets didn't take any risks during clean up. I actually have a hard time imagining a similar clean up, and Fukushima was nowhere near as bad, in the West. It is also true that everyone, first and foremost the USSR and then the West, was happy to downplay the accident and, as rather direct consequence, screw over the liquidators when it came to compensation. The collapse of the USSR didn't help neither.
    - jboy55 4y ago
      There was a report, at that time, that the melting uranium mixed with water would go critical, as water would become a moderator not that it was flash into steam. The estimated yield was in the megaton range. It probably was a bad report, just a 'worst case scenario', but the meeting, depicted in the series, where it was discussed could have happened with probably different participants. I see it as very similar to the fears that the trinity test would have caused the nitrogen in the atmosphere to undergo a fusion chain reaction. Even though those fears weren't realistic, they were real and are often included in the telling of the history of the Manhattan project. "And if the uranium reached meltdown temperature - 2,900C -a single sphere of molten fuel would burn through the concrete foundations of the reactor building, and keep going until it reached the water table. At that moment, there would be another explosion, exponentially more devastating than the first; the three remaining reactors would be destroyed in a nuclear blast that would render Ukraine, Belarus and Russia uninhabitable for decades to come. 'That was the most terrifying thing,' says Veniamin Prianichnikov. 'We were petrified of meltdown, walking around like zombies.'" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/26/nuclear.russia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/26/nuclear.russia "There was a moment when there was the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn't get into it - with the water, they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe." Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev Deputy head of the executive committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/apr/25/energy.ukraine#_=_ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/apr/25/energy.u...
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Thanks for the quote. I also thought the "40 megaton" stuff in the series was way overdramatized. I had no idea they really thought this. But of course nuclear was very new and these were also the guys that believed an RBMK could never explode.
        jboy55 4y ago
    - karlzt 4y ago
      The music is great though.
- flipthefrog 4y ago
  The baby thing is from an interview with the firefighters wife in the Nobel Prize winning book Voices from Chernobyl. I dont remember how its depicted in the series, but in the book, it is clear that this is the woman's personal belief
  - kergonath 4y ago
    I don’t remember the details in the series but this was jarring. It was asserted as a fact (by the lady, IIRC, so not a specialist) without any nuance whatsoever. That said, the OP is harsh. There are a couple of dodgy “facts” such as this one, but remarkably few for such a long mainstream TV programme.
  - shakow 4y ago
    > but in the book, it is clear that this is the woman's personal belief And that would make sense in the serie. However, there, it's presented as a fact by an apparently perfectly competent physician.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      I mean, physicians are still people and can hold stupid beliefs. Our family doctor, who is otherwise fully licenced medical professional and finished actual medical school not some quack university, would regularly recommend my mother herbs and various folk treatments, maybe in a belief that it's better to prescribe us a course of herbal tea(which will do nothing) instead of yet another course of antibiotics for what appears to be a normal cold. Obviously the show is fictional and dramatized - but I could totally see a normal doctor who knows better telling a grieving mother that this is what happened, that her baby absorbed radiation in order to save her - even though it is a complete lie, it might help her with the grieving process. I don't think they should do it, but I think it's believable enough.
derbOac 4y ago
I think the video miniseries is based on a book, Voices of Chernobyl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl). I'd be curious if anyone on HN has read it and if they have comments on how the miniseries and book compare and contrast.
- flipthefrog 4y ago
  Its an amazing book. The author, Svetlana Alexievich, won the Nobel Price for literature a few years ago, the only journalist that has ever won it. The book consists entirely of interviews, and opens with an interview with the wife of the firefighter depicted in the beginning of the series. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/belarusian-nobel-laureate-says-hbo-series-has-completely-changed-perception-of-chernobyl/29997496.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/belarusian-no...
overlordalex 4y ago
There is an accompanying podcast which went into the decisions behind the series, such as the character design and which events to show and how they were dramatised. The original page is dead[0] but it seems to be available on most podcast platforms. I can highly recommend a listen-along for your next rewatch [0] https://www.hbo.com/chernobyl/article/podcast https://www.hbo.com/chernobyl/article/podcast
technoooooost 4y ago
Found it to be cheesy, like all mainstream content.

shakow 4y ago

I'm not fond of the serie, to be honest. The actors are stellar, but there are such liberties taken with basic physics (the steam explosion supposedly ventilating half of Europe, the baby protecting the mother from radiations, ...) that it seems to me that they were this close to have a great thing, and they just made useless melodrama out of it.

hef19898 4y ago
The baby thing wasn't necessaey, as was some of the stuff at the end of the last episode, e.g. the bridge of death. After all so, it is entertainment. They also took some liberty with the timeline when it comes to the evacuation of Prypyat. The steam explosion, and the fear ofbhaving the melted core dropping into the groundwater, actually were real concerns at the time. Concerns that were acted upon rather decisevly, by sending divers under the reactor and by having miners installing a heat exchanges by hand. That those concerns might not have been valod, well, that's 20/20 hindsight isn't it?
- shakow 4y ago
  They were valid concerns, but I don't think anyone seriously thought it would have an amplitude such as described in the serie. The whole affair is dramatic enough that there is no need to graft on some sensational, over-the-top, fantasies.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    If memory serves well, it is a while I read the Chernobyl reports (Soviet and IAEA), they actually did think that might happen. After all, it was the forst time something of this magnitide happened ever, so nobody knew anything for sure. And one thing is sure, the Soviets didn't take any risks during clean up. I actually have a hard time imagining a similar clean up, and Fukushima was nowhere near as bad, in the West. It is also true that everyone, first and foremost the USSR and then the West, was happy to downplay the accident and, as rather direct consequence, screw over the liquidators when it came to compensation. The collapse of the USSR didn't help neither.
  - jboy55 4y ago
    There was a report, at that time, that the melting uranium mixed with water would go critical, as water would become a moderator not that it was flash into steam. The estimated yield was in the megaton range. It probably was a bad report, just a 'worst case scenario', but the meeting, depicted in the series, where it was discussed could have happened with probably different participants. I see it as very similar to the fears that the trinity test would have caused the nitrogen in the atmosphere to undergo a fusion chain reaction. Even though those fears weren't realistic, they were real and are often included in the telling of the history of the Manhattan project. "And if the uranium reached meltdown temperature - 2,900C -a single sphere of molten fuel would burn through the concrete foundations of the reactor building, and keep going until it reached the water table. At that moment, there would be another explosion, exponentially more devastating than the first; the three remaining reactors would be destroyed in a nuclear blast that would render Ukraine, Belarus and Russia uninhabitable for decades to come. 'That was the most terrifying thing,' says Veniamin Prianichnikov. 'We were petrified of meltdown, walking around like zombies.'" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/26/nuclear.russia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/26/nuclear.russia "There was a moment when there was the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn't get into it - with the water, they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe." Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev Deputy head of the executive committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/apr/25/energy.ukraine#_=_ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/apr/25/energy.u...
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      Thanks for the quote. I also thought the "40 megaton" stuff in the series was way overdramatized. I had no idea they really thought this. But of course nuclear was very new and these were also the guys that believed an RBMK could never explode.
      - jboy55 4y ago
  - karlzt 4y ago
    The music is great though.
flipthefrog 4y ago
The baby thing is from an interview with the firefighters wife in the Nobel Prize winning book Voices from Chernobyl. I dont remember how its depicted in the series, but in the book, it is clear that this is the woman's personal belief
- kergonath 4y ago
  I don’t remember the details in the series but this was jarring. It was asserted as a fact (by the lady, IIRC, so not a specialist) without any nuance whatsoever. That said, the OP is harsh. There are a couple of dodgy “facts” such as this one, but remarkably few for such a long mainstream TV programme.
- shakow 4y ago
  > but in the book, it is clear that this is the woman's personal belief And that would make sense in the serie. However, there, it's presented as a fact by an apparently perfectly competent physician.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    I mean, physicians are still people and can hold stupid beliefs. Our family doctor, who is otherwise fully licenced medical professional and finished actual medical school not some quack university, would regularly recommend my mother herbs and various folk treatments, maybe in a belief that it's better to prescribe us a course of herbal tea(which will do nothing) instead of yet another course of antibiotics for what appears to be a normal cold. Obviously the show is fictional and dramatized - but I could totally see a normal doctor who knows better telling a grieving mother that this is what happened, that her baby absorbed radiation in order to save her - even though it is a complete lie, it might help her with the grieving process. I don't think they should do it, but I think it's believable enough.

derbOac 4y ago

I think the video miniseries is based on a book, Voices of Chernobyl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl). I'd be curious if anyone on HN has read it and if they have comments on how the miniseries and book compare and contrast.

flipthefrog 4y ago
Its an amazing book. The author, Svetlana Alexievich, won the Nobel Price for literature a few years ago, the only journalist that has ever won it. The book consists entirely of interviews, and opens with an interview with the wife of the firefighter depicted in the beginning of the series. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/belarusian-nobel-laureate-says-hbo-series-has-completely-changed-perception-of-chernobyl/29997496.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/belarusian-no...

overlordalex 4y ago

There is an accompanying podcast which went into the decisions behind the series, such as the character design and which events to show and how they were dramatised. The original page is dead[0] but it seems to be available on most podcast platforms. I can highly recommend a listen-along for your next rewatch [0] https://www.hbo.com/chernobyl/article/podcast https://www.hbo.com/chernobyl/article/podcast

technoooooost 4y ago

Found it to be cheesy, like all mainstream content.