Chernobyl
surfercyclist
Posts: 894
Anyone else been watching this? I binge watched the series this week. Utterly fantastic and compelling. Shows the arrogance, the stupidity and the bravery of man.
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surfercyclist
Posts: 894
surfercyclist
Posts: 894
Posts
I am not sure. You have no chance.
It did feel that it was an attempt to largely reflect the truth of the events rather than to sensationalise for the sake of drama which isn't easy when you're portraying a political and social system that was so dysfunctionctional and defied common sense.
The idea that you'd take control of a nuclear power away from scientists and give control to a committee has primary purpose was to fulfill the whims of the person on the next step up a very rigid hierarchical ladder seems absurd but that was the Soviet way at that time.
I do wonder, looking at the US right now where many key political and infrastructural positions are held by unqualified people simply doing the bidding of their master, whether this has a timely message to the US about uncontrolled and unqualified power.
Here's one take on it:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/bla ... he-past-4/
Not watched it yet. I have the book "Chernobyl" (Serhii Plokhy) sat in my pile of "to read".
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I'm guessing it's more a drama of what happened real-time, but did they cover the bad design of the reactor? If I recall correctly, there were a number of factors that made the problems much worse, tiny details such as dished ends on the control rods which allowed them to hold a little pocket of air.
The older I get, the better I was.
It was the graphite tips on end of the rods ultimately along with procedures which weren't followed/followed correctly.
I ahem, downloaded it. Seek and ye shall find.
They omitted that the trial was stopped when Nikolai Fomin (the guy with the black curly hair) attempted suicide when he could no longer cope with the enormity of what he'd done in relentlessly pushing orders from above despite knowing what could go wrong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07cdbzx
There was a flaw in the RMBK reactor design. Basically a positive void which can cause issues with pressure. That and as said the graphite tipped rods done because its cheaper which basically means the reaction spikes as they are inserted (provided the rods were fully removed).
That and they didn't follow procedure, the meltdown is very nicely explained in the final episode.
But yes, the "biorobots" were harrowing they only used them because the Germans who made the nonbiorobot were told the level of radiation the world at the time was being told by Moscow, not the actual level which basically killed it.
Also I don't have sky Atlantic but I can easily watch it through other means.
Easty commuter
Tripster AT
The podcast is worth a listen too as well if you want to know the history more accurately.
- @ddraver
I'll see if i can find it.
The older I get, the better I was.
- @ddraver
That's genius!
- @ddraver
A man-made disaster that allows nature to bounce back on a truly incredible scale, so let’s f~ck it over with huge swathes of solar panels.
You have a PM sir
Easty commuter
Tripster AT
tbf even the Grauniad (after their hilariously out of tune review of episode 1 - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... aster-epic ) had to keep stressing in its pieces what you are watching really happened, it wasnt overly exagerrated for TV purposes simply because the facts were stranger than most could imagine the fiction to be.
thats the point when you watch it, though we have the benefit of knowing what they were dealing with before the people being shown really understand it, but some of the crazy stuff they do, go to the roof look down and if you can see the core then its a problem, and if you dont we'll just shoot you, or how the Soviet system operated first thing they do is prepare a list of the people whose fault the explosion was, its scary how it was dealt with it, and how an even bigger disaster was averted by people literally sacrificing their lives to do it.
I must say though, when I first saw the main miner guy I had one of those moments where I knew i'd seen him before in something but couldn't put my finger on it. Then a couple of episodes later it hit me, he was the guy who played menacing trevor in eastenders years ago, the guy who terrorised little mo....Alex ferns!
It's quite similar in format to The Looming Tower, see people making ridiculous decisions with the benefit of hindsight but still having problems believing anyone was so stupid.
I am not sure. You have no chance.
Did you also pick out Ralph Ineson who played Chris Finch in The Office and Victor McGuire who played Ron Wheatcroft in Goodnight Sweetheart?
Edit it may have been an Irish accent, she speaks quite softly so it's hard to pick out.
It was a conscience decision to use natural accents and maybe first few minutes seems odd but after that I just accepted it and didn't bother me at all.
Think there's talk of a film now to be made, unsurprisingly given the almost universal praise for the series.
I take it youve not seen the Death of Stalin film either ? for me the natural accents worked perfectly, though I know people seem split on it, but to me you arent sitting there trying to pick out who sounds most like Alexsandr the meerkat "okay Sergei were going to run a nuclear wessel test, it will be simples!!"
and you might pick it up more in later episodes the accents also depict the class structure which youd never get with put on accents, so the miners/soldiers are more working class local accents, the power plant workers arguably middle class accents, the Soviet officials/KGB are upper class accents. which is exactly how it was, and there would be Russian, Ukranian, Belarussian and a whole mix of accents in real life, so it does fit.
and put on accents have a habit of wandering because they arent natural, just look at Game of Thrones Aidan Gillens Littlefinger accent was all over the place because he couldnt or they couldnt decide if he was trying to be Irish still or not.
when you have a person (I hate to call them characters as they were real people) like Dyatlov, how if Paul Ritter is doing a put on accent does he add that undercurrent of menace and blind self assurdness in what he was doing through what he is saying, by sounding like a fake Bond villain.
Yes, but I clocked him as 'that one off of GoT'
Roos Bolton makes an appearance later too.
The accent discussion is covered in the first podcast if you're interested but people have covered the jist of it here.
If you only have an hour, there is a BBC program shot in a very similar way with Ade Edmondson as...I think...Dyatlov (but possibly the main guy...whose name I've blooming forgotten now...[Edit: Legasov]), which is on YouTube. I find it hard to believe that the HBO series wasn't somewhat inspired by it as they re very similar in style and approach, albeit the BBC program is a single hour.
Having spent a little time in what I assume was a Soviet era complex, it captures the atmosphere of such places very well.
- @ddraver
The core exploded.
"No it didn't"
The roof is off.
"You're mistaken"
But I can see the core
"No you can't"
Easty commuter
Tripster AT