Chernobyl – The show that saved HBO
After the disappointing ending of Game of Thrones, many people said they would cancel their HBO subscription, but that was until they discovered Chernobyl.
The show climbed its way up to the top of IMDB’s top 250 TV shows in history list after only three episodes.
It is a show that tells the story of what happened before and after the explosion in the core of Chernobyl. The whole series is over after only five episodes; however, five episodes was all it needed to be one of the greatest shows in the world. It is a historical drama written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck which follows the deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute, Valery Legasov and everything he does to stop the fire and prevent further damage from the explosion. Two other important characters are Boris Shcherbina, the deputy chairman of the council of ministers and Ulana Khomyuk, a nuclear scientist from Minsk. Khomyuk is merely a representation of the many scientists who actually assisted Legasov in his work.
The producers of Chernobyl have been praised for their accuracy in how they managed to recreate the 90s in the Soviet Union. Soviet-born Americans and Russians have been tweeting about how hair, clothes and lighting is taken straight out from the era. A few details were inaccurate, like how teenagers were carrying small children’s school bags and school children were wearing holiday uniforms on a non-holiday. But this is hardly noticeable for the average viewer who is not looking specifically for those details.
As well as being a historical drama, it is also a political drama. It shows how the government was more interested in keeping the accident a secret than actually making use of all resources available as soon as possible to stop it and prevent the fatal consequences. Because of the government’s secrecy there is to this day still no accurate official record of how many people died because of the accident.
My advice would be to set aside a whole day to watch Chernobyl. Each episode is around one hour long, and you will not want to stop watching after the first episode.