Series Review: "Chernobyl" (2019).

"The truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants. It doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl. Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask 'What is the cost of lies?'" This is at the heart of Chernobyl. This HBO historical drama television miniseries created and written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck. On 26th April, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, Soviet Union suffered a massive explosion that released radioactive material across Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and as far as Scandinavia and western Europe.

The accident occurred due to a botched routine RBMK-type nuclear reactor safety test where the emergency cooling system had been shut off, allowing the overheated system to continue to overheat. This was approved by Viktor Bryukhanov and Nikolai Fomin, and supervised by Anatoly Dyatlov, the directors of the plant. The initial explosion was actually pressurised steam in the cooling system, followed by a nuclear detonation a few seconds later. Exposed, the burning reactor released nine tonnes of dematerialised waste a mile skyward, followed by a giant radioactive cloud of xenon and krypton gases. Immediately afterwards, the very first firemen were sent in, many of whom received lethal doses of radiation within a couple of minutes. This was due to lack of preparation and knowledge to deal with a catastrophe of this magnitude, in large part to the Soviet government's attempt to keep it quiet in order to avoid national embarrassment. It extended to Pripyat, a city 1.2 mile / 2km away from Chernobyl, not being immediately evacuated, and the townspeople falling ill within a few hours of the explosion. The surviving plant workers, the firemen and the townspeople were all sent to Moscow for hospitalisation. Pripyat was only evacuated two days later, and the Ukrainian public was not notified until nearly a week after Swedish scientists had identified the radioactive cloud blowing north. Contaminated rain fell on southern Belarus soon after the explosion, so that this and the environment surrounding Pripyat became the worst-hit areas. On the morning, a special governmental distress call sent out to Valery Legasov, the First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, to assess the situation with Boris Shcherbina, the vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers. Even though Legasov, a specialist in chemistry and molecular physics, wasn't a specialist in nuclear reactors, he was the only high-ranking scientist at the time as others were not available. Legasov saw a terrifying picture upon his arrival, trying to assess what had happened from the beginning and realised that the situation was far more serious than he was led to believe. He had to make a decision and fast. Legasov had to work out how to decrease the radioactive threat coming from the open reactor. His first decision was to bombard it with lead and sand via helicopter. For two weeks, the reactor continued to burn while workers tried to counteract myriad chemical fires. Four-hundred miners worked around the clock for one month to prevent a total nuclear meltdown. Legasov was aided by dozens of scientists who worked tirelessly alongside him at Chernobyl. By mid May, Legasov celebrated his first triumph, the radiation levels decreased and was contained.

However, by summer 1986, a strong wave of criticism from European countries hit the Soviet Union. They accused the government of concealing information about the disaster. The Kremlin understood that the nation's reputation had to be saved. A special team of scientists compiled a special report about the causes and scale of the fallout to be presented to The International Atomic Agency. Legasov presented the four-hundred page report to the agency in Vienna in August, and survived a three-hour Q&A session with five-hundred nuclear experts in which he gave full answers to. He received a standing ovation for his efforts, it was another triumph as his country's name was cleared. Back in Moscow, Legasov was nominated for the Hero of Social Labour medal, but ultimately he was denied the award. Meanwhile, the radiation effects on Legasov's body started to show, his health deteriorated and was immediately hospitalised. Meanwhile, scientists discovered fatal design flaws within the reactor. In addition, it emerged that bombarding the reactor with lead and sand was useless. Legasov soon returned to work and threw himself into finding out what had caused the disaster and ways of preventing anything like it from happening again. Legasov urged the government create an institute of risk and security and wrote an article to criticise Chernobyl's design scheme and the government's carelessness. The government denied him and the article was not published. Legasov made one final push and worked out a plan to create a special council. The plan however was once again not approved.

Legasov took his own life at the age of fifty-one on April 26, 1988, exactly two years after the explosion. Audio tapes of Legasov's memoirs were circulated among the Soviet scientific community. His suicide made it impossible for them to be ignored by the government. In the aftermath of his death, Soviet officials finally acknowledged the design flaws of the RBMK nuclear reactor. The reactors were retrofitted to prevent an accident like Chernobyl from happening again. Some of the scientists who aided Legasov spoke out against the official accounts of events and were subject to denunciation, arrest and imprisonment. Shcherbina died at the age of seventy on August 22, 1990, four years and four months after he was sent to Chernobyl. For their roles in the disaster, Bryukhanov, Dyatlov and Fomin were sentenced to ten years hard labor. After his release, Formin returned to work at a nuclear power plant in Kalinin, Russia. Dyatlov died from radiation-related illness on December 13, 1995 at the age of sixty-four. The firefighters' clothing still remains in the basement of Pripyat Hospital. It is still dangerously radioactive to this day. Of the people who watched from the railway bridge, it has been reported that none survived. However, this was dismissed as an urban legend with the bridge now known as The Bridge of Death. It is estimated that at least a hundred out of the four-hundred miners died before the age of forty. However, their efforts proved unnecessary. The contaminated region of Ukraine and Belarus, known as the Exclusion Zone, ultimately encompassed two-thousand-six-hundred square kilometres. Approximately three-hundred-thousand people were displaced from their homes. They were told that it was temporary. It is still forbidden to return. Over six-hundred-thousand people conscripted to serve in the Exclusion Zone. Despite widespread accounts of sickness and death as a result of radiation, the Soviet government kept no official records of their fate. Gorbachev presided over the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. In 2006, he wrote, "The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl... was perhaps the true cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union." In 2017, work was completed on the New Safe Confinement at Chernobyl, at a cost of nearly two billion dollars. It is designed to last a hundred years.

In 2014, Mazin began researching for the project by reading books and government reports from inside and outside of the Soviet Union. Mazin also interviewed nuclear scientists to learn how a reactor works, and former Soviet citizens to gain a better idea of the culture in 1986. Mazin also read several first-person accounts in order to bring additional authenticity to the story. Mazin's interest in creating the series originated when he decided to write something that addressed "how we're struggling with the global war on the truth right now". Another inspiration is that he did not know why Chernobyl exploded. He explained, "I didn't know why, and I thought there was this inexplicable gap in my knowledge ... So, I began reading about it, just out of this very dry, intellectual curiosity, and what I discovered was that, while the story of the explosion is fascinating, and we make it really clear exactly why and how it happened, what really grabbed me and held me were the incredible stories of the human beings who lived through it, and who suffered and sacrificed to save the people that they loved, to save their countrymen and to save a continent, and continued to do so, against odds that were startling and kept getting worse. I was so moved by it. It was like I had discovered a war that people just hadn't really depicted, and I became obsessed" He further elaborated that "The lesson of Chernobyl isn't that modern nuclear power is dangerous. The lesson is that lying, arrogance, and suppression of criticism are dangerous". In preparation for the miniseries, Mazin visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. In the early stages, Mazin made the decision not to use Russian or Ukrainian accents, and instead, have the actors use their natural accents. This was done in order to avoid the 'Boris and Natasha' cliche. Mazin also did not cast any American actors, as that could potentially pull the audience out of the story. In late July 2017, it was announced that HBO and Sky had given a series order with Mazin as writer/creator and executive producer with Renck as director and Jared Harris to star. In mid March 2018, it was announced that Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson had joined the main cast. In early May, it was announced that Paul Ritter, Jessie Buckley, Adrian Rawlins, and Con O'Neill also had joined the cast. Simultaneously, principal photography began and wrapped in late August. Filming took place in Fabijoniškės, a residential district in Vilnius, Lithuania, which was used to portray the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, since the district maintained an authentic Soviet atmosphere. An area of densely built panel housing apartments served as a location for the evacuation scenes. In addition, Visaginas, Lithuania, to shoot both the exterior and interior of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, a decommissioned nuclear power station that is sometimes referred to as "Chernobyl's sister" due to its visual resemblance and the nuclear reactor design used at both Chernobyl and Ignalina (RBMK nuclear power reactor). In early March 2019, it was announced that it would premiere on May 6, 2019.

Strong performances were given by the ensemble cast that includes Harris as Legasov, Skarsgård as Shcherbina, Watson as Ulana Khomyuk, Buckley and Nagaitis as Lyudmilla and Vasily Ignatenko. The three leads are especially strong. Harris's portrayal of Legasov was profoundly empathetic. Skarsgård gave a multi-layered performance as Shcherbina. Watson gives a strong, level-headed performance as Khomyuk, a fictional composite character, who was created to represent all of the scientists who aided Legasov and to honour their dedication and service to truth and humanity.

Chernobyl is a terrific drama that raises the most unsettling questions about the cost of truth and lies. It is well-acted, well-crafted, and disturbing as hell. The events leading up to and after the "accident" are indeed based on, arguably, the most catastrophic disaster in human history. And yet it works so well not because of its factual basis, but because of its human content. The performances are so strong, so authentically and consistently, that the miniseries becomes a drama dealing in personal values. It is so accurate that, even though it's not completely accurate, they could easily be documentaries. We see the greatest fears of the Soviet government and culture unearthed when a nuclear power station goes out of control and the men-in-suits cover it up. The power of this miniseries is more than just the acting, although Harris, Skarsgård and Watson are superb, and more than just the script. It is that this scenario could really happen. The atmosphere produced throughout the miniseries is heart-stoppingly intense; characters are uniformly well-acted. I recommend it to everyone as an example of the dangers of lies. In conclusion, Chernobyl is a taut, intelligent, and chillingly gripping drama till it turns melodramatic at its end. Not a comforting story, but an undeniably potent one.

Simon says Chernobyl receives: