I just finished the final episode last night. Since many still haven't seen it (suspect wit will be put on DVDs for those without HBO), I will agree with many that have already called it the best TV series ever made (we watched alongside When They See Us, another brilliant series). I was especially struck by the respect and friendship between Valery Legasov, Boris Shcherbina and to a lesser degree Ulana Khomyuk. Great performances throughout, but special performances by Skarsgard, Harris and Watson. And those liking Skarsgard should watch River on Netflix.
Enjoyed the last episode, but not my favorite episode like some others here. ONLY because I'm a stickler for total realism and it bothered me just a little bit during Legosov's presentation knowing that in real life, he wasn't even present in the courtroom. But I know exactly why it was done that way. The prologue at the very end was very moving. I was pretty much speechless when the final credits started rolling. Just an amazing series overall. Maybe the best I've ever seen. Right up there with Band of Brothers and Breaking Bad.
Great show, great finale... but you gotta go longer than one season to be in the running for "best tv series ever made."
Kinda doesn't feel right how the management got railroaded like that. if things went down the way the show depicted with them being total assholes along with the young blood repeatedly voicing concerns, then i get it. however i have a feeling that in real life it isn't that easy to put all the blame on them. for the sake of a show i get that you want to have antagonists and protagonists, but it usually isn't that black and white.
It's gut wrenching. To see all of those guys being sent into work under those conditions - being sacrificed - will give you nightmares. Watching them die from radiation expoure is especially gruesome. This movie will have you feeling as if you were there - that's why everyone is raving about it. The tenor of the series coupled with the sense of gloom and dread is just unrelenting.
Russia hates HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ so much that it’s making its own series HBO’s recently-ended Chernobyl mini-series is easily one of the best shows of the year — and so much better than Game of Thrones season 8, by the way. The show tells the real story of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster as experienced by the ones who had to deal with the consequences. Unsurprisingly, Putin’s Russia doesn’t like it. Not only that, but a Russian network is making its own Chernobyl, which will be a fictional story based on a conspiracy theory that claims the CIA — who else — sent an agent to the Chernobyl zone to carry out acts of sabotage. According to The Moscow Times, Putin’s media is struggling to deal with the fact that HBO, an American TV channel, told the story about its heroes. Several major media outlets in the country have criticized HBO’s show, which is a national sensation in Russia, even though it’s only available online to paying views. Russia’s most popular newspaper says that competitors of the state-atomic center Rosatom are using the series to tarnish the reputation of Russia as a nuclear power. A paper popular with the elderly said the show is a “caricature and not the truth.” One of the country’s main news channels said the only things missing “are the bears and accordions.” The lead anchor of that channel went on to paint the show in a negative light. According to him, the scientist Valery Legasov was openly critical of what happened at Chernobyl and voiced his concerns in an article published in the same publication that’s criticizing the HBO show. But the anchor leaves out the fact that said article that Legasov wrote in 1987 was refused initially and only hit the press after the scientist took his own life in 1988. The Moscow Times further explains that Putin’s Kremlin has done little to honor the Chernobyl disaster, and the Russian heroism that followed it, which contributed to saving the country and parts of Europe from radioactive doom. This brings us to the upcoming original Chernobyl series from local Russian channel NTV, which will tell a different story than HBO’s miniseries, based on a conspiracy theory: Sure. Either that or a combination of factors caused the accident, including crass incompetence at several levels, a web of lies and censorship and paranoia, and the regular communist statecraft and spycraft apparatus characteristic to the Soviet Union and many of the countries under its sphere of influence at the time. If you haven’t watched HBO’s hit show, here’s a trailer to give you a brief taste of it: [I didn't include the trailer from the article.]
Most of all I feel sad for those miners that had to work in those conditions, 25% of them dying early, just for 400 rubles.
