Chernobyl

This is one of the best dramatic series I have watched in years. It can be difficult to maintain tension and drama describing true events that the viewer might be already aware of to some extent, but this program manages it nicely. It is a little predictable in how it tells the story, by which I mean it uses several angles from different characters' points of view: the scientists and administrators representing the Russian government, the employees of the power plant and other disposable workers, and of course the masses of people caught up in the disaster; and finally, for a close-up look, the wife of one of the plant's employees, who follows her husband to a Moscow hospital. All of these perspectives are handled well.

A couple of the criticisms I saw sort of bounced off me. One person on another website said it was a good series but he was giving it a low rating because he couldn't believe it was rated higher than Game of Thrones. Uh, okay. Another person felt that the miniseries sugar coated the Communists. I don't know; I lived through Gorbachev and Glasnost, and this portrayal seemed spot on to me.

I fully intend to watch the series again, after I finish reading the book it is at least partially based on. Don't miss it.

Terrifying and sobering – as exceptional a piece of television narrative as you're ever likely to see

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star was Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many died from the water, because it was made bitter.

• Revelation 8:10-11

Вічная Пам'ять

• Polychronion chanted at the end of Eastern Orthodox funerals

This bitch was in the middle of the room with her puppies. She went for me – I p__ut a bullet in her. The puppies were licking my arms, being all sweet and playful. We had to shoot at point-blank. Saints preserve us! There was this one dog, a little black poodle. I still feel sorry for it. We heaped the tipper full of them. Taking them to the burial site. To tell the truth, it was just a plain old deep pit, though you were meant to dig it taking care not to reach the ground water and line the bottom with plastic. You're meant to find some spot fairly high up, but you know how it is. The rules were broken all the time: we had no plastic, and we didn't spend long looking for the right spot. If you wound them rather than killing them, they'll squeal and cry. They were tipping them out of the truck into the pit, and this little poodle began scrabbling about. It climbed out. Nobody had any cartridges left. Had nothing to finish it off with, not a single cartridge. They shoved it back into the pit and covered them all up with earth. Still feel sorry for it.

• as related to Svetlana Alexievich; Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (1997)

_Altogether, 50 million curies of radiation were released by the Chernobyl explosion, the equivalent of 500 Hiroshima bombs. All that was required for such catastrophic fallout was the escape of less than 5 percent of the reactor's nuclear fuel. Originally it had contained more than 250 pounds...

I was really excited for this series as I have read a good amount about the USSR and have a personal relationship to it, having been born in a former satellite country. But I came away disappointed. The series really drew out some scenes for no reason, to the point where I felt the need to fast-forward (for example, essentially the ~entire 5 minutes of going under the core to open a valve). I was also frustrated that the series started right at the point of disaster; I think I would have appreciated more context in a backstory section.

Can't recommend.

very good series