Chernobyl

surfercyclist

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.

robert88

..and you can do a tour.

pblakeney

SurferCyclist wrote:

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.

Well summed up. I am only at 4/5 and would say that it is very good, and essential viewing. Not necessarily pleasant viewing mind, given the subject matter.

PhilipPirrip

Having grown up with the enigma of the Eastern Bloc and threat of the Cold War I still find the glimpses into these systems fascinating.

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.

bompington

Not seen any, might have to though.

Here's one take on it:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/bla ... he-past-4/

Ben6899

The Sun ran a piece, explaining to its readership that the five-part series is based on real events...

Not watched it yet. I have the book "Chernobyl" (Serhii Plokhy) sat in my pile of "to read".

greasedscotsman

Thought the Bio-robots on Masha was particularly scary!

capt_slog

I think it's on some channel/platform I can't get, and I'm sorry I've missed it.

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.

surfercyclist

Capt Slog wrote:

I think it's on some channel/platform I can't get, and I'm sorry I've missed it.

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.

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.

PhilipPirrip

Capt Slog wrote:

I think it's on some channel/platform I can't get, and I'm sorry I've missed it.

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 final episode is a concised version of the courtroom events and explains the timeline from how they cut corners on design from the outset, that they knew about potential failures and flashpoints resulting from cutting corners, that they knew they weren't prepared for the test but went ahead anyway as those higher up demanded it and then a complete chronological explanation of what led to catastrophic failure.

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.

surfercyclist

Highest rated tv show ever. Even better than Love Island - how can this be!!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07cdbzx

step83

SurferCyclist wrote:

Capt Slog wrote:

I think it's on some channel/platform I can't get, and I'm sorry I've missed it.

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.

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.

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.

ddraver

Agreed, very good.

The podcast is worth a listen too as well if you want to know the history more accurately.

capt_slog

Step83 wrote:

Also I don't have sky Atlantic but I can easily watch it through other means.

I'll see if i can find it.

ddraver

I'll see if I can PUT it in a LOCKER for you somewhere....

FocusZing

Ironically as this land is badly polluted now as with Fukushima's They could cover the land with solar panels which don't require constant maintenance and make the area still productive.

ddraver

...huh

That's genius!

thegreatdivide

Great idea.

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.

step83

Capt Slog wrote:

Step83 wrote:

Also I don't have sky Atlantic but I can easily watch it through other means.

I'll see if i can find it.

You have a PM sir

awavey

Ben6899 wrote:

The Sun ran a piece, explaining to its readership that the five-part series is based on real events...

Not watched it yet. I have the book "Chernobyl" (Serhii Plokhy) sat in my pile of "to read".

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.

bonk_king

Absolutely brilliant, a must watch mini series.

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!

Pross

Justing watching the first episode.

Pross

Quite surreal for anyone who has played Call of Duty 3.

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.

pblakeney

Pross wrote:

Quite surreal for anyone who has played Call of Duty 3.

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.

The stupid decisions don't stop in episode 1. Far from it.....

greasedscotsman

bonk king wrote:

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!

Did you also pick out Ralph Ineson who played Chris Finch in The Office and Victor McGuire who played Ron Wheatcroft in Goodnight Sweetheart?

Pross

The one thing I did find a bit odd was that they all used their native accents, which I prefer to bad fake accents, other than the firefighter's wife who seemed to be doing a Russian (Ukrainian) accent.

Edit it may have been an Irish accent, she speaks quite softly so it's hard to pick out.

surfercyclist

Pross wrote:

The one thing I did find a bit odd was that they all used their native accents, which I prefer to bad fake accents, other than the firefighter's wife who seemed to be doing a Russian (Ukrainian) accent.

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.

awavey

Pross wrote:

The one thing I did find a bit odd was that they all used their native accents, which I prefer to bad fake accents, other than the firefighter's wife who seemed to be doing a Russian (Ukrainian) accent.

Edit it may have been an Irish accent, she speaks quite softly so it's hard to pick out.

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.

ddraver

greasedscotsman wrote:

bonk king wrote:

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!

Did you also pick out Ralph Ineson who played Chris Finch in The Office

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.

Pross

Yeah, I have no problem with people using their real accent. It's much better than dodgy attempts at a generic Eastern European accent. It was just the one character did seem to be doing that (think I was wrong now though).

step83

Dyatlov's tops quotes

The core exploded.
"No it didn't"

The roof is off.
"You're mistaken"

But I can see the core
"No you can't"