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Chernobyl [HBO]

Started by Mobius, May 08, 2019, 03:17:15 AM

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Twed

Quote from: Captain Z on June 26, 2019, 01:45:40 PM
+1.

Glossed over some interesting points too. What happened to the miners? Presumably they got the heat exchanger in and it worked... how far away was the lava flow from the floor? No mention at all of the concrete sarcophagus that was installed within the time frame of the series. Too much additional drama for the sake of drama, e.g. the liquidator who ripped his boot during the roof clearing - never seen or mentioned again. The reality that those guys swapped their dosimeters around so that some could continue doing extra work and some could duck out.
Yeah, some more details and closure would have been nice.

marquis_de_sad

I think their big mistake was to end with the lie: that almost everyone in the vicinity eventually died from the radiation. I don't have a problem with stuff like the scene on the bridge - that's artistic licence as far as I'm concerned. But they should have been more honest in the bit at the end with all the text. Saying "according to reports" people were on the bridge and they all died blah blah; it's a myth. The real story is enough of a nightmare, as well as a testament to the bravery of the people who worked to turn that nightmare into a mere disaster. I don't think you need to have a huge death toll. Also I thought it was underhand to call the minimum direct deaths (31) the "Soviet" number. It's not just Boris Stalinleninovski who accepts that number, everyone does, simply because beyond that you're talking about people getting cancer, and you can never be sure it was radiation from the plant that caused the cancer rather than any of the other million things that cause cancer.

Lost Oliver

Thought this was great and I'm so sorry but I fecking love the soundtrack. Had it on repeat ysterday in work. Which was nice.

I do have an argument against the show though and one that I'm struggling to answer. It's a long one though so I'll write about it later. Consider this a tease.

touchingcloth

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on June 26, 2019, 02:43:27 PM
I think their big mistake was to end with the lie: that almost everyone in the vicinity eventually died from the radiation. I don't have a problem with stuff like the scene on the bridge - that's artistic licence as far as I'm concerned. But they should have been more honest in the bit at the end with all the text. Saying "according to reports" people were on the bridge and they all died blah blah; it's a myth. The real story is enough of a nightmare, as well as a testament to the bravery of the people who worked to turn that nightmare into a mere disaster. I don't think you need to have a huge death toll. Also I thought it was underhand to call the minimum direct deaths (31) the "Soviet" number. It's not just Boris Stalinleninovski who accepts that number, everyone does, simply because beyond that you're talking about people getting cancer, and you can never be sure it was radiation from the plant that caused the cancer rather than any of the other million things that cause cancer.

Yeah, that annoyed me a bit too. The text said something to the effect of "the official Soviet death toll of 31 has remained unchanged since 1991", despite one of the other slides saying something like "the disaster and its aftermath has been cited as a major cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991".

phes

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on June 26, 2019, 02:43:27 PM
and you can never be sure it was radiation from the plant that caused the cancer rather than any of the other million things that cause cancer.

Surely you can. Question is do they have the records or  will to do so.

popcorn

Quote from: phes on July 01, 2019, 03:42:02 PM
Surely you can. Question is do they have the records or  will to do so.

Why do you think this can be done?

Twed

Simply open a dialogue with the cancer. Ask it about its roots.

Zetetic

Quote from: popcorn on July 01, 2019, 03:44:36 PM
Why do you think this can be done?
You might not be able to determine the causal route of any individual cancer with a very high degree of certainty (although I suspect even this is debatable in the case of some cancers).

You can probably determine an excess number of cancers attributable to a particular cause with a fairly high degree of certainty.

(Yes, you might still be wrong, but that's not a reasonable standard.)

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: Zetetic on July 01, 2019, 04:03:02 PM
You can probably determine an excess number of cancers attributable to a particular cause with a fairly high degree of certainty.

They can see a massive increase in thyroid cancer in the effected areas, which is thought mainly to come from people continuing to drink irradiated cow's milk and that sort of thing in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. People don't die as often from thyroid cancer though, so that doesn't help with the death stats.

touchingcloth

Here is a fun thing to try. Got some nasty mosquitoes in the bedroom so I whipped out the Raid and sprayed the buggers, and as I watched the spray rain down like to much spot on the Bridge of Death I said to the room, "what is the cost of flies?"

Would do again.

ZoyzaSorris

Quote from: Lost Oliver on June 27, 2019, 07:46:15 AM
Thought this was great and I'm so sorry but I fecking love the soundtrack. Had it on repeat ysterday in work. Which was nice.

I do have an argument against the show though and one that I'm struggling to answer. It's a long one though so I'll write about it later. Consider this a tease.

How much later?

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: touchingcloth on July 03, 2019, 12:33:42 AM
Here is a fun thing to try. Got some nasty mosquitoes in the bedroom so I whipped out the Raid and sprayed the buggers, and as I watched the spray rain down like to much spot on the Bridge of Death I said to the room, "what is the cost of flies?"

Would do again.

don't.

get one of them electric tennis bats instead, & deploy some citronella to deter them in the first place. unless you like the idea of slowly killing everything else in the vicinity.

touchingcloth

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on July 05, 2019, 01:24:20 AM
don't.

get one of them electric tennis bats instead, & deploy some citronella to deter them in the first place. unless you like the idea of slowly killing everything else in the vicinity.

Like I said: what is the cost of flies?

(The raid was actually the dregs of a bottle we found that someone else had left here. We're back on citronella and a rolled up Private Eye now.)

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: touchingcloth on July 05, 2019, 04:15:28 AM
Like I said: what is the cost of flies?

(The raid was actually the dregs of a bottle we found that someone else had left here. We're back on citronella and a rolled up Private Eye now.)

good man. best use for PE too, assuming you actually meant the mag & not some poor spod in a mac & clutching a tiny camera.

Finally watched.

Quite a few moments which got to me. The opening scene with the action in the background. The helicopter crash. Puppies.

Also, the casting. Yer men from Game of Thrones, one as a miner in one scene (didn't spot him with his lad out, can anyone confirm?), Micheal Socha on the bridge. Finchy channelling Marshall Zhukov.

Anyway, if I ever have to do a lecture course on nuclear energy, totally stealing the red and blue card trick.


Pseudopath

Quote from: A Hat Like That on July 24, 2019, 04:11:57 PM
one as a miner in one scene (didn't spot him with his lad out, can anyone confirm?)

You didn't spot the miner with his lad out? How could you miss him? Although you did prompt me to look up the actor and I've just realised that it's Alex Ferns (who played Little Mo-abuser Trevor Morris in EastEnders):


Oh, I saw at least, oh, twelvty miner cocks. None belonging to James Cosmo, mind.

touchingcloth


Twit 2

#288
Just caught up with this. Overall, brilliant. A few flaws and cliches but highly compelling stuff. Don't know what the fuck was going on with Watson's accent. Her character was a bit annoying in general, but kinda makes sense as she's a composite. Does make me want to read endlessly about Soviet grimness, which will take its toll on my psyche no doubt.

SteK

I used to work on nuclear plants, almost everyone who worked in the cooling ponds area was dead 2 or 3 years after retirement due to cancer.

I refused to work in there, but I would quite happily go on the pile cap, lovely quiet serene place when the reactor was on, gentle hum, huge 250 foot square room to myself.

I was in IT, everything ran on VMS, great system.

One think about the disaster that puzzled me, the 'scram' button, ours wasn't called that, I forget what it was called, just 'the button that drops the rods' I think, that should instantly kill the reaction, well on our reactors we had a further get out of jail system, boron balls, basically fill the fuel channels with boron and deffo kill it dead. Bastard to hoover out after though, and only considered in a super-emergency, which of course we never had.

So I spoke to a few mates from the industry (PhD Physics-type bloke) as to why they didn't drop the boron balls, said that reactor design didn't have them, so Chernobyl reactors were certainly 1.0 litre Bobby-basic hatchbacks of the reactor world.

I thought Jared Harris looked a lot like Richard Harris, I had no idea!

marquis_de_sad

A medical responder of the Chernobyl accident reviews some of the details of the programme.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: SteK on October 23, 2019, 12:04:59 PM
I used to work on nuclear plants, almost everyone who worked in the cooling ponds area was dead 2 or 3 years after retirement due to cancer.
Was just reading about a guy from back home who blames his time at Sellafield for his cancer - which has happened a few times. Indeed, I knew a family who won a case against BNFL after they laid blame for their dad's terminal cancer on him being one of the firemen on the scene at Winscales in 1957.

So far, my dad hasn't shown any nasty effects from his 20-odd years at Sellafield, but he did remember back in 1986 that their monitoring equipment showed a slight spike in radiation and everyone scrambling to find the cause until the news from Chernobyl became public.

SteK

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on October 23, 2019, 03:31:20 PM
Was just reading about a guy from back home who blames his time at Sellafield for his cancer - which has happened a few times. Indeed, I knew a family who won a case against BNFL after they laid blame for their dad's terminal cancer on him being one of the firemen on the scene at Winscales in 1957.

So far, my dad hasn't shown any nasty effects from his 20-odd years at Sellafield, but he did remember back in 1986 that their monitoring equipment showed a slight spike in radiation and everyone scrambling to find the cause until the news from Chernobyl became public.

Well massive cooling ponds at Sellafield.....

I was at BNFL, and then British Energy. Loved it actually! Some slack regard for health and safety in some parts back then, like the graphite labs they used to throw what I assumed was radioactive graphite blocks at me to do 'the graphite dance'. Was probably inert but you never know with that lot.

And people walking back through the door (by pulling on the door-closer) to avoid going through the personal monitoring device, which was a PITA to be honest. Everyone did it but guess who got caught. Me.


Sebastian Cobb

I've had that Sellafield Stories book on my mental reading list for ages. Then Chernobyl came out and people discussed books about that and I read Chernobyl Prayer instead.

Good that I've been reminded it exists though.

Zetetic

I'm hoping once we get out of the EU, we can stop messing about with all the expensive reprocessing at Sellafield and just go back to tipping stuff into the storage ponds for the seagulls to deal with.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Zetetic on October 23, 2019, 07:48:52 PM
I'm hoping once we get out of the EU, we can stop messing about with all the expensive reprocessing at Sellafield and just go back to tipping stuff into the storage ponds for the seagulls to deal with.
All those bald children were arousing suspicion, though.

Sebastian Cobb

Can't we just drain it into the Irish Sea?

oy vey

A sort of backslop custard union if you will. And you will.

touchingcloth

On SteK's point that there was no "scram" at Sellafield, wiki says there are also "trip" and "EPIS" functions on some reactor designs.

SteK

Quote from: touchingcloth on October 23, 2019, 11:47:13 PM
On SteK's point that there was no "scram" at Sellafield, wiki says there are also "trip" and "EPIS" functions on some reactor designs.
That was it - the trip button! Expect of course it wasn't labelled. Nothing was. Built in the 50's, all phosphate dials and light green painted metal.

It wasn't Sellafield either I was at, I think their reactors were all experimental. The were four production reactors (MAGNOX) at adjacent Calder Hall, supposed to power the Sellafield plant initially.