Chernobyl [HBO]

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm not that squeamish but it was quite hard to eat my tea while watching those lads bodies turn to mush.

[Cuellar]

Yeah that was full on.

Was looking forward to seeing the Dad from Friday Night Dinner all knackered and ill but they didn't show his face - clearly blew the makeup budget on the others.

[Bazooka]

Trevor from Eastenders is a cracking actor

For sure.

[St_Eddie]

An elephant's foot never forgets to douse people with radiation.

[Puce Moment]

This is tense as fuck. Brilliant, but I can only watch one episode per evening.

Love the Skarsgaard character going from being a Party faithful denier of reality, to quickly realising his own imminent death and genuinely trying to help. I thought they were going to pit those two characters against each other, but something more subtle and interesting occurred.

[Neomod]

Yeah that was full on.

Was looking forward to seeing the Dad from Friday Night Dinner all knackered and ill but they didn't show his face - clearly blew the makeup budget on the others.

The writer said they didn't show him to leave that up to your imagination. Apparently he was much worse than the other two. The flesh was almost totally black and he had no face.

[RoadMaintenanceTycoon]

I'm looking forward to checking this out. The writer Craig Mazin has had his name on a fair amount of cack (Hangover II cough cough) -- but I know him from the excellent Scriptnotes podcast, which he co-hosts with John August. He's a very thoughtful guy and I always found it jarring how poor the movies he was involved with are, so I really hope this is good and embodies all of the principles of good dramatic writing he's always talking about

[St_Eddie]

Building a sarcophagus over the edit bug.

[Cuellar]

The writer said they didn't show him to leave that up to your imagination. Apparently he was much worse than the other two. The flesh was almost totally black and he had no face.

Fair enough.

Fuck.

[Cuellar]

I've read the wikipedia page for the accident  and I'm still pretty shaky on why it happened. Something about the power output being too LOW, and then they jammed control rods in(?) too fast(?) and then it exploded?

Doesn't help that I keep getting distracted by the hyperlinks and thinking 'yes, I should really read up on the foundations of nuclear physics before trying to wrestle with Chernobyl' which probably isn't the best idea

[imitationleather]

*** SPOILER ABOUT SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, BUT HASN'T BEEN IN THE SHOW (YET) ***

The writer said they didn't show him to leave that up to your imagination. Apparently he was much worse than the other two. The flesh was almost totally black and he had no face.

Really? How the fuck did he survive until the '90s?!

Dunno if that is a spoiler or not. Actually, I'll put a little warning up before posting. It could be annoying if you're trying to go in completely fresh.

[Neomod]

Oh yeah, I meant Akimov. Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) is seen. He's the one that says "I'm not eating that shit" Hard to recognise sans eyebrows and hair.

[imitationleather]

Oh yeah, I meant Akimov. Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) is seen. He's the one that says "I'm not eating that shit" Hard to recognise sans eyebrows and hair.

Ah I thought that was him. As I was watching a live stream I couldn't go back and check and I sort of zoned out momentarily during his appearance.

[Cuellar]

Oh yeah, I meant Akimov. Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) is seen. He's the one that says "I'm not eating that shit" Hard to recognise sans eyebrows and hair.

Oh! I didn't recognise him at all!

[Phil_A]

I'm constantly surprised by the number of recognisable faces that have turned up in this even just for very small parts. James fucking Cosmo playing a miner that doesn't even get a name. Even the dude in the hospital that arrests Khomyuk and only has about three lines was in Bodyguard last year. And every actor is doing really good work, no-one is slumming it.

[Bazooka]

I'm constantly surprised by the number of recognisable faces that have turned up in this even just for very small parts. James fucking Cosmo playing a miner that doesn't even get a name. Even the dude in the hospital that arrests Khomyuk and only has about three lines was in Bodyguard last year. And every actor is doing really good work, no-one is slumming it.

What about the two actors that caused the meltdown? If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[Zero Gravitas]

I'm really enjoying it, great as a horror of group denial more than anything.

Having said that a few sections are a little broad for my taste: Shadov being some be-suited ponce, Garanin being a crass day drinker, all well and good for a spike of pathos but it tastes a little off.

When there are actual accounts of much truer conflicts: Shadov attempting to assure dosimetry and exposure controls for the miners in the face of them being in a gamma bath, regional secretaries trying to call off local labour day celebrations but being instructed to march like nothing is wrong; it tends to put a cheap and immediate personal presentation over the structural problems, which were they presented with a little more thought we might be capable of fuller identification with.

I can easily see (not at all unrealistically) Dyatlov, Bryukhanov and Fomin coming in for a lot of both narrative blame and a further dramatic drubbing, which similarly rubs me a little wrong.

A deeper and differently handled piece of reporting is the book 'midnight in chernobyl' a great read that'll satisfy questions over everything from the technicalities of the failure, to why it was so sad to see those rose bushes in the square in episode 1.

[mothman]

I've seen some Tweets complimenting the show for the sheer degree of accurate Soviet-era detail. Even more so than The Americans, which got the US 1980s bits spot-on but fluffed the Russian bits on occasion.

[beanheadmcginty]

How come the Soviets still managed to have a classic brown 70s? They were unafflicted by capitalism and all that shit, yet they clearly still underwent the brown/orange 70s period - the aftermath of which we see perfectly recreated in this programme. What caused it? My money's on either radiation or water contamination. Potential sequel material there.

[Zero Gravitas]

I've found the discussions on .ru torrent trackers to be quite interesting, it's true they have praised the physical details but have also come down less positively on the dialog (a hard one as many are watching a translation)  and routinely callous Soviet officials.

http://rutracker.org/forum/search_cse.php?q=chernobyl

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5729394&start=30

[Neomod]

I'm constantly surprised by the number of recognisable faces that have turned up in this even just for very small parts. James fucking Cosmo playing a miner that doesn't even get a name. Even the dude in the hospital that arrests Khomyuk and only has about three lines was in Bodyguard last year. And every actor is doing really good work, no-one is slumming it.

Having just finished The Terror I've just realised Hickey turned up as fireman Ignatenko.

[the science eel]

That kid who had the main part in American Animals last year turning up as a rookie soldier.

The budget for this thing must have been astronomical.

[Norton Canes]

Yeah, it's gone through the roof

[phes]

Funniest episode so far.

[Head Gardener]

the music is great too

[RickyHamster]

Funniest episode so far.

[Bazooka]

The accent thing hasn't been too jarring so far, but that posh peasant lady was too much.

[imitationleather]

The accent thing hasn't been too jarring so far, but that posh peasant lady was too much.

Yeah that was far too theatrical for me, Clive.

[Mobius]

The accent thing hasn't been too jarring so far, but that posh peasant lady was too much.

Hehe that was the first time it really stood out for me.

Didn't help she was talking to the phone thief from Peep Show!

[phes]

That was an excellent episode. Seriously fucking grim stuff watching the biorobots clearing the roof. What a great bunch of DEAD SOON lads. A lot of stuff in that was lifted straight from footage in Chernobyl 3828 so if watching a dramatisation wasn't sickening enough then you can go watch the source material on YouTube