I've watched all of her watching this and if you had done the same you'd understand she's empathetic and understands the pain thousands of people have gone through
I know the reason for this! It's because, in the age of the internet, there are so many people out there who never leave the house that they don't recognize real human emotion, like you.
The amazing thing about Boris is that he said he hoped one day he would matter. And he ended up mattering twice. In 1988 he was in charge of rescue efforts in Armenia after a major earthquake.
The bench scene between Boris and Valery is perhaps one of the best written and acted scenes I’ve seen in the last 10 years. It hits me every time! Two actors at their best. Wow.
100% agree. Sometimes simply a good script with good written dialogues and some actors that can fill their character with life convincingly is so much more powerful than all the action, special effects, over-constructed twists and "epicness" so many shows and movies rely on these days.
I'm so sorry people spoiled you for the montage at the end. I see it at everyone who does a reaction to Chernobyl and it annoys me every time, so thank you for coming right out and saying it. Somehow, people seem to think it's not spoilers if "it happened" in real life and it's not in the dramatized part of the series -- but the montage is brilliantly constructed narratively and it is there for a reason - catharsis. Learning the facts presented in the montage when the "story" is over is meant to be an emotional release from the series and it packs an amazing punch as new information, which people who have seen the series already or a few times seem to completely forget when they watch reaction channels, and they spoil it every time. I really wish people would learn this. It's *part of the series*.
I completely agree. It is such a dumb comment for people to say that it isn't a spoiler if it's based on historical fact. It's very simple: If you tell someone something that they don't know, but would find out by watching the show/movie then THAT is a spoiler.
@@SilentBob731 I'm sorry you don't care about how telling stories works. What are you here for, if you're not interested in an honest reaction? And you'll note that *Angela* said, right in the video, that she would have preferred not knowing what was in the epilogue to having been spoiled by her viewers, so this is coming straight from the person who is reacting to the show.
" For God's sake, Boris, you were the one who mattered most" The story arc of Boris and Valery relationship from Boris threatening to have Valery thrown out of a helicopter to this line is wonderful and heartbreaking all at the same time.
@@riffgroove It's based on how Russian propaganda works. That's why you see so many Russians giving vague answers like "who knows" when confronted with Russian vs Western narratives. They can't tell if there even is a truth anymore because they're just getting bombarded with so much bullshit that reality has become something completely warped and unreadable.
@@SutraRein-xy4qr I tend to think that politics cannot operate on mostly truth. Instead, there's meant to be mostly lies, because a political scene gains much from lying. It gains power, and a government needs power to survive for its country. It needs its secrets, and its people aren't told a lot because of their apparent threat. If the people were given all the power, we'd have nothing but chaos. Sad as it is, the people of any country, no matter how tyrannical or how free, are meant to be "sheep" to their shepherds of a government. However, if you have such a government like the Soviet Union that attempted to operate not merely on "mostly lies" but on "all lies", you will have what happened for truth's sake after the Chernobyl disaster. That is, to operate a government solely on lies makes the truth too much of a bright spark to wave away. It's like thinking a person who has learned of their child's death can forever live in their grief and in denial of what has happened instead of committing to the effort towards accepting the truth of the loss and finding relief and comfort in even that.
That's exactly why you would keep even that intention of yours a secret. Lol. Spilling truth is meant to be like detonating a bomb, metaphorically kind of like how the truth was told after the Chernobyl disaster. But it isn't something that's initally shown around as if someone could get away with walking around with a grenade in their hand at every hour on their work shift at Walmart.
Two things for you. My undergraduate advisor (later my dissertation committee chair) was phoned by NSA at 4 in the morning our time on April 26, 1986. He was quizzed as to what could possibly be creating such a massive flare in northern Ukraine visible to (and alarmingly so) to NORAD. I later spent the summer of 1986 looking at freshly de-classified imagery of the region assessing the damage to agriculture and vegetation in the wake of the accident. I cannot watch this excellent presentation without fact-checking against my own fairly extensive knowledge. From a standpoint of acting and riveting storytelling it is awesome. Oh and the second thing? Remember that General that drove the truck with the dosimeter on it, rather than expose one of his own men? Gen. Vladimir Pikalov was a three-time hero of the Soviet Union in WWII, and commanded the chemical warfare troops. It is said in a macabre joke that the shielding on the truck was to protect the radiation from Pikalov, not the reverse. He died in March of 2003 after a long, totally badass life.
She also mentioned she'd read up about Chernobyl after the series. We better not talk about anything she'd read there either, wouldn't want to spoil those un-dramatized written words about certain facts with other un-dramatized written words about the same facts.
@@miller-joel telling someone what's going to happen on the show definitely SPOILS THE ENJOYMENT of experiencing it for herself. as you said, it's in the name.
Each episode had a corresponding podcast where the creators went over in detail every historical fact versus every change they made to present them here. It's a fascinating listen.
Dyatlov was created by that society. He ran away from home as a boy, managed to get an education. Married. He Lost his 9-year-old son to Leukemia, most likely because of his job working close to dangerous materials. As he's played here, he comes across as a bitterly unhappy man who's already lost what he loved and cares about very little. I can muster an atom of sympathy for him.
plus its a tv show so don't believe everything you see, its for entertainment not truth. Also he has a government trying to cover it up and blame him for the problem, do you know if he actually was the problem? No. You need facts to decide if he made mistakes, or just invented facts against him to cover it up by the government. Hey, China and Covid, the same thing. Hide the problem that will fix it right? lol
Dyatlov was indeed known for being abrasive, but by most accounts of surviving plant workers he was nowhere near as villainous as the HBO miniseries made him out to be. He was more combative towards the Soviet State than he was towards his colleagues.
Dyatlov was very much a result of the culture. When someone has grown up with the depth of understanding that the State will always win and *doesn't care about individuals*, ending up being seen as cold and unfeeling is the believable outcome.
The story isn’t just about the accident, it’s the story of the people who lived, suffered, and died. The series is the people’s story. The people sacrificed everything - their health, their home, their professional reputations and careers, even their very lives to do what the situation required of them. They went willingly to their deaths to save others, to save their countrymen, to save the people of neighboring countries, they sacrificed all for the sake of the greater good. As the character Khomyuk says so solemnly, “they died rescuing each other”. The story may get details wrong or changed for dramatic effect but the series makes the viewer feel the experience, trauma, and emotion of the events surrounding Chernobyl. The story is not just the accident’s story, it is the people’s story.
@@neptunusrex5195 Yes! This is why I do not care much about the scientific or dramatic liberties taken in this show. The institutional and cultural failures that lead to the accident (and don't kind yourself: democratic capitalist systems have their own different but equally powerful pressures to not rock the boat or tell the whole truth as the Soviet communist system) and the "we simply must deal with this" heroism are all true in the sense that any storytelling is true. So what that none of our three (Khomyuk, Scherbina, Legasov) were involved in the actual trial of the three reactor managers. It is still a great scene.
There's a full circle moment, where Legasov is explaining to them, and us, how a RBMK reactor works. Where one of the first interactions he has with their authority is one telling him to explain to him how a reactor works and he laughs at the idea, and we all scoff at the hubris of such a question. But he exactly had to work on how to do that, to get his point across to the board and history. And it works, we understand without needing to understand everything.
It also has one of my favourite pieces of acting in the show for me, where you see Legasov say, 'It is beautiful...' and he smiles for a moment, like he really loves it. Great little detail from Jared Harris.
The Bridge of Death thing is apparently an urban myth--most people who have researched Chernobyl have said that there weren't actually a bunch of people watching from the bridge. The fact that the explosion happened in the middle of the night meant that people slept right through it or at least weren't going outside to look at it. Hope that's a little comforting. Also, I think that the power of the final episode is that, despite having seen the aftermath of the explosion, I watched the scenes from the control room with a palpable sense of dread, just hoping *something* would happen to stop the disaster that I knew was inevitably coming. This show plays people's emotions like a violin. Masterful filmmaking!
Of course, no one would go to the bridge at night. In addition, it is about 1 km from the houses. It's quite far. The bridge got its name due to another fact.
I believe it was called "The Bridge of Death" more for the fact that the bridge was part of the primary roadway into the plant site, and many workers who crossed that bridge (firefighters, liquidators) would die.
@@SCharlesDenniconThe Red Forest was adjacent to the Bridge of Death. The trees died and turned red. Pine is known to have a lethal dose of radiation similar to that of humans. This bridge at one time had huge doses of radiation because one of the two beams passed through it. This is also a theory, but more plausible. It is a fact that two beams passed from both sides of Pripyat that night, but did not hit the town itself. It looks like God's help.
The bridge itself is probably a myth, probably - hard to tell what’s true in this story at all because there was so much disinformation. My wife has some friends who lived not far from Pripyat, and their telling of it was that there were definitely people whose curiosity was… bad for their health.
Correct... when the series aired some people appeared that were in that bridge that night and watched the extrange lights and were still alive today..iirc they were still children and now they were in their 40/50s
Valery Legasov tried to take his own life on several occasions, but failed. He succeeded exactly 2 years to the day after the accident. He was survived by his wife and two adult children. There are amazing podcasts for each episode of the series, where the creators go into depth what artistic licenses were taken, and into more detail that didn't make it into the episode. The podcasts can be listened to after each episode as they do not spoil anything coming up in later episodes (unlike TH-cam commenters). The graphite tips on the control rods did serve a purpose beyond just being cheaper. They made regulating the reaction easier as it was never considered all control rods being withdrawn and reinserted at the same time. Had the control rod channels not warped due to the excessive heat, locking the graphite tips within the radioactive core, the AZ-5 button probably would still have worked as designed. As with all accidents it isn't a single thing that went wrong, but a lot of disastrous elements coming together to make the accident happen. The propaganda number of 2000 Roentgen told to the Germans may have been so they could obtain the "Joker" robot. Had they given them the real number, the robot may not have been delivered. You could argue that they at least tried, even if it ended up not working.
51:22 Scientists would be the _first_ to tell you that they are not always right. Scientists work with hypotheses and theories, with which they explain reality as accurately as possible given the available information (including careful testing of those theories, etc...). The point is that if new information comes to light that contradicts those theories, scientists will happily admit that they were wrong - and adjust the theory accordingly.
yeah this kind of mythologizing of scientists or any kind of expert is almost equally dangerous compared to dismissing experts as "elitists". The whole point is that it's not binary. You can always cherry pick "experts" and information to fit your world view. What makes scientific understanding valuable is assessing evidence, sometimes conflicting, in context and without bias. And we should expect every adult to be able to do it, not assign it to the realm of Scientists, the Truth Handlers.
Science doesn't lie, but scientists do. Specially if they are captured by pharma. The "experts" lied about EVERYTHING since 2020. Pharma eventually admitted they had not even tested you-know-what for transmission, after claiming you-know-what were 100% effective. They did LIE. They did not get it "wrong." It was completely deliberate. If you can't admit that, you're the one with your head in the sand...
@@jerodast Not all experts are scientists, and not all scientists act like experts in society. You've made a straw man argument against scientists here, based on obvious problems with opinionated experts. You are also confusing basic critical thinking with actually doing science. The scientific method entails much more than just "assessing evidence", and almost always requires more knowledge about a highly specific subject than can be obtained by a lay person lacking a firm theoretical foundation.
My older brother is a former Navy nuc, and a current civilian reactor operator. He has a lot of little complaints about details in this show, especially "the baby absorbed it all," but he does say that Legasov's description of reactor dynamics in this episode is the very best one he has ever seen for a non-technical audience.
True the baby didn't absorb the radiation. But if speaking in non scientific simplified terms it's understandable. The baby didn't absorb the radiation instead, it would however have absorbed some of the radioactive material instead of the mothers body retaining it..
@Markus117d Dose is dose. There is no sense in which the baby's absorbed radiation reduced the mother's. The absolute intensity (Bequerels or Curies), the absorbed dose (grays or rads), and the "equivalent dose" (which is fuzzier because it tries to quantify the biological harm of a dose which varies by radiation type and absorbed dose) measured in sieverts or rem (roentgen equivalent man) and these are defined in much more complex ways. The units they keep talking about in this show, roentgen, really only apply to X and gamma rays in air. The radiation from alpha and beta decay are a greater part of the hazards in an open fission reactor. But cells receiving energy from exposure are cells receiving energy from exposure. Let's put it this way: if you are standing next to an open reactor core next to someone else you are not any safer than you would be standing there by yourself. And that is, essentially, the assertion they make with the "baby absorbed it instead" remark.
@evilpenguinmas You missed the point i was saying, it didn't absorb the radiation, It did however absorb some of the radioactive materials ingested ect by the mother, just it absorbs non radioactive materials. The body can't distinguish between a stable element and it's isotopes.. And if speaking in a non scientific manner for TV audiences it does get the point across, without going into overly technical explanations..
I'm a former navy Nuc and retired nuclear engineer. Your brother is absolutely correct. The show is great, but it plays fast and loose with a lot of details about radiation effects and reactors.
@@Markus117d I didn't miss it! I'm just don't think it makes any difference. It's just something the show gets wrong. It doesn't diminish the show. It's just something completely technically inaccurate in there so they can say the line about babies sacrificing for their mothers. I wasn't trying to criticize you in any way. I get what you mean, it just wouldn't make any difference. The radioactive isotopes would be taken up by the baby's cells and the mother's cells in the same proportion. I'll admit that to the extent that the fetus has tissues whose cells are dividing more rapidly than the same tissues in an adult, there might be a somewhat higher absorption in the fetus than in the mother, but this is not because it making less available to the mother. I don't want to make more of this than we have. I see your point. I hope you see mine. Let's agree it is a really good show!
That bit of dialogue beteeen Boris and Valery is a real tear jerker, amazing writing and acting. That serie has to be the most powerful and impactful that i've ever watched. Love your reactions! 😊
I'm so glad you at least acknowledged the relevance of this story to the world today in general and the United States in particular. The creators of the show didn't make it simply because they wanted to talk about internal Soviet Union machinations in the 80s. It's about today. Climate Change. Covid. Politics. All of it. I've never seen a reactor even hint at that in their reactions. Which is understandable because they don't want to alienate anybody, sure, but it's a totally superficial view of the story to see it simply as a picture of a specific time and place in the past. So thank you!
Vichnaya Pamyat means Eternal Memory (I think). I think it’s an apt title for the finale, seeing as this should never be forgotten. If i ever become a history teacher, Chernobyl will be on my list of things to show my students.
It's a common phrase in any of the Orthodox sects that use church slavonic during memorial services, called panikhidas. Memory eternal Memory eternal Blessed repose Memory eternal Fitting to remember those who died and the forgotten ones who lived on to carry the weight
I appreciate how you lift other reactors up. I frequently come across your comments posted on other reactors' channels, and you are so positive and encouraging
The creepy mouse is Soviet Mickey Mouse. Чебурашка, they had their own version and his own animated tv show etc... When Legasov is taken away from the court room, its always kind of striking to me that when he enters the room he looks around, and notices theres no windows and a drain/grate in the middle of the floor. Most Soviet people from that era would have been familiar with stories of the red terror and the purges from their parents or older family members. Tens or hundreds of thousands or more, people taken into dark rooms/basements, brutally killed, and the blood and brain matter etc just washed down the drain in the floor and the bodies hauled off to unmarked graves. He's in there fully expecting to be killed.
You wanted to find empathy for Dyatlov, in the early part of his career he worked building nuclear submarines. In an accident he was dosed with 1 Sv of radiation. He survived but years later his young boy passed from leukemia. He is reported to have blamed the radiation. He was tough as nails, some respected him... others despised him. He spent the last years of his life trying to redeem the names/characters of his men in the control room that night. He wrote a book before he passed in 1995.
from what i read the "bridge of death" was not nicknamed as such *after* chernobil disaster, but actually *before* due to car crash that happened on it
After Chernobyl Unit 4 Exploded, the other Units kept on running and producing electricity. Unit 1 was shutdown Nov. 1996, Unit 2 was shutdown after a turbine fire in 1991 and Unit 3 was shutdown for inspections and repairs 1n 1997. Unit 4 and 5 were under construction at time of the explosion in Unit 4 and were never completed. In 1999-2000 it was decided to permanently decommission all units. It was very lucky that the "accident" at Unit 4 didn't melt down the other reactors. Thank God (or Deity of your choice or not)
well if you actually watched the show and read up on history, wasn't a diety that prevented that, it was the hard work of the people represented on the show. did you even watch the show? lol.
Something to consider about the loss of reactor 4 at Chernobyl in 1986, that is not talked about in the series, is that despite all that radiation damage to the local environment where a 30km exclusion zone is in effect due to the risk to human life, reactors 1 through 3 were continued to be operated until the last was shut down in 2000. Reactor 2 was shut down in 1991. Note that the possible reason why the fire fighters were not overly concerned when the attended the reactor 4 incident was that in 1982 reactor 2 suffered a damaging fire that resulted in a temporary reactor shutdown while fire fighting crews fought the blaze. Reactor 1 was shut down in 1996 so a decade after the 1986 accident. Reactor 3 was finally shutdown in 2000. Human beings had to work in that environment to run and safely shutdown those other reactors. In other words the story doesn't end with episode 5. Up to 5000 workers had to work in the immediate area of reactor 4 to erect the Sarcophagus that served as an interim safty containment. This took 6 months to erect, but was always considered temporary. A more durable New Safe Confinement structure (intended to last 100 years) was built off site and then moved to the area and positioned over the sarcophagus. It took a decade to build was moved into place in 2016 and declared finished in 2017. So not that long ago. And while it was built off site those who erected it over the sarcophagus and completed the process, again all had to operate in the immediate area of reactor 4 where levels of radiation are still lethal, and likely to remain that way for hundreds if not thousands of years. The NSC will need replacing at some point, so this will be a recurring issue. Chernobyl is the wrolds worst nuclear disaster rated at level 7 on the INES (International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale), and is matched in this level only by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 Japan. Yet they are vastly different in scope. Fukushima was largely limited to a 50km area around the plant, while Chernobyl reached as far as the UK for radioactive fallout. Note that there is no level 8 on the INES. Chernobyl saw the evacuation of 350,000 people and Fukushima saw the evacuation of 150,000 people. None of those from Chernobyl have been able to return, where as about 90,000 (60%) evacuated from the area have been able to return. Both disasters impossed 'permanent' exclussion zones. For Fukushima this is about 340 square km, where as Cherobyl it is about 2,600 (yes that is twenty six hundred) square km. That is about 7.7 times larger for Chernobyl. While the Japanese evacuated out to a 50km radius, many of these areas are now considered safe to return, while a 30km radius around Chernobyl will not be likely to see human habitation for thousands of years.
On a different topic, here's something I love so much about the series - "How does an RBMK reactor explode?", or some variant of that question, is asked at least once in each of the first four episodes (by different characters for different effects), and then, in episode five, we get the answer from Legasov, as if he's reaching back through time and answering each and every instance of the question being asked: "*That* is how an RBMK reactor explodes. Lies."
to give more details about Legasov. He had a wife and two kids, and his wife were very much involved in getting the reactors fixed, she wrote papers too about the reactors. And yes, he killed himself to put attention on the truth of the matter. But.... the wife is a hidden hero
My friend is an engineer who works for a really big company that does contruct power plants (nuclear and normal) he has 10y worth of experience educating the staff who manages the control room. And he always said to me "Listen mate, you sleep better if you don´t know who manages nuclear power plants and the skillset those ppl have"
@@funnylilgalreacts Interesting thing is that , Homer Simpson should have died at the very first episode, that glowing green container he carries around carelessly is said to contain one of the most radioactive materials, which is a form of cobalt, the warnings on the container literally say "drop and run" a lot of people have measured that he probably would have died only minutes after getting home from work in the opening. Also a different topic and an interesting story, there is a content creator known as Pravus, who mostly does strategy and civilization building games, he and his wife had been trying for a child for something like five years, but it never worked. The doctors couldn't figure out why, nothing was wrong with them, they just didn't seem to be having children. Then one day, they finally had a child, heck they even have a second child on the way. Sometimes there are some mysteries that even science cannot solve.
I am going to assume you are referring to this in a "global" sense. I have to respectfully disagree with regard to those who staff nuclear plants in the US. I worked for many years doing control room design (i.e., evaluating control room design from the perspective of what is know as ergonomics or human factors). I worked at many different power plants, and can say without reservation the control room staff are extremely professional (most came from the Navy having served on various nuclear powered vessels). I was IN a control room at one point, during a refueling outage....we were replacing ALL of the labeling on the Emergency Diesel Generator panels...someone out in the plant tripped a breaker and the control room (and much of the plant) lost all power. I watched this operations crew go from sitting around eating pizza, it was about 2am and lunch for this shift, to immediately on station...with much of the attention AT the Emergency Diesel Generator panels. They restored power in a matter of minutes...only glancing at our control panel drawings a couple times to double check they were operating the current control. Absolutely amazing. So...I take a bit of offense when folks cast shade on our NPP operators. I wish I were that talented.
sorry no. The fall of the Soviet union is not from instances or occurances, but by the leadership. Those running the country are responsible. Was Gorbachev leading the country at that time? Then he is one of those responsible. The US is in a bad state when it comes to healthcare, crime, prisons, and many other things. Those problems aren't caused by accidents, injuries, etc. Those problems are caused by those in charge not fixing the problems. Simple as that.
@@eolsunder You're not wrong; but some events can be identified as tipping-points. The Chernobyl disaster could be claimed as one. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was also around this time, and that could be claimed as one as well. I wonder what the tipping-point for the US will be.
The true achievement in this particular episode is managing to deliver and immense amount of information and context and to do so engagingly and without extreme flashy elements. The break to have the conversation between Boris and Legasov really grounded Boris' self image and how wrong he was. We he confronted the senior staffers after landing in the helicopter is the test of his character and the remarkable man he had underneath. Amazing! Phenomenal reaction!
It was more of mismanagement lesson and sovok mentality demonstration. RBMKs were ok by design and there are still functioning ones today. P.S. passenger airplanes can be dangerous if stalled or above mach 1, pilots just need to follow the rules to the letter.
The series is a dramatisation and they were probably unfairly harsh towards Dyatlov. He was very experienced with these reactors and, while a harsh and unpleasant boss, he most certainly didn't go into denial about what happened, as depicted in the show. I recently read the book Midnight in Chernobyl and I came to feel a lot more empathy for him. The higher-ups were trying to push the blame onto the operators and Dyatlov was very outspoken in the defense of his men such as Toptinov and Akimov. And after the accident he wrote to the parents of these men to let them know that what was being said about them was untrue and that they did their jobs well.
There is an interview with him on youtube. I take it you're already acquainted with That Chernobyl Guy? How does those match with the book? I can't remember if TCG used the book in all his work, but...
@gottagowork not seen him actually, so can't say. I work in the nuclear industry and my manager recommended the book after we were discussing the HBO series
of course you don't just accept the "facts" on these people or how they are represented in a tv show. You also don't demonize Dyatlov past the tv show, because it is a tv show and they make up stuff to make the show more appealing in various ways. Like the divers that went into turn on the water, they didn't go into danger, there wasn't that much radioactivity, and they had no problems doing the job, all made up for the TV show. So if you want to know the truth about Dyatlov read up on him and learn. He could have been stupid, or he could have just been called that by the soviet leaders who were trying to blame him instead of them accepting responsibility. A communist government trying to hide facts? say it isn't so! You all remember Covid with China right? lol
I watched this with my husband who studied the Chernobyl disaster in the Navy Nuclear Power school. They go through everything: the interviews, the testimony, the case notes of how they responded. I waited until this episode to tell you: 1, the trial is word for word exactly as recorded. So much so that my husband was able to say exactly what Boris, Ulana and Legasov said before it was said on TV. 2, the KGB did take all the research and recordings and everyone in the trial was forced to keep it secret except! 3, Legasov knew he was dying so he aligned himself with American CIA spy's and gave them everything: the recordings, the research, the interviews, the timelines of events. In return his family was brought to America for protection. He committed suicide and left the tapes for American spy's to intercept before the KGB found him. This is why all UN aligned Nuclear military schools teach this disaster and it is how we know all of this information.
I was in the NNPS in '79-80. We would have benefited from the knowledge gained from Chernobyl. At the time, the only reactor disaster we learned about was the 1961 SL-1 accident in Idaho. A correction though. Perhaps your husband is mistaken. Valery Legasov did not testify at the trial. His testimony was entered as a written transcript of an interview he had with the KGB months before the trial. Also Ulana wasn't there because she didn't exist.
Given that Ulana was a composite character made up for the show, seems like it'd be difficult to know what she was going to say from the trial recordings.
@GeraldH-ln4dv your right and i was wrong. They read Legasov's written testimony. What the actor said was word for word what was written. Ulana was not a real person but her testimony in the show matches the timeline of events exactly as it is recorded. In that way, my husband was able to say what happened. I'm sorry this information didn't get to you. This must be incredibly frustrating.
@jerodast yes Ulana was a composite. They don't study just the recordings, they studied everything. Her characters testimony is that of the timeline of events. Having studied everything and all aspects of the timeline of events, my husband was able to say exactly as it was reported in the show
@@lizgreer6888 Chernobyl had a later effect on me, although it happened after I was finished with my 6 years. When I got out, I went back to school to complete a nuclear engineering degree helped by the credit hours given for all of the Navy school time (much less than it is now, which I hear is 90 hours total now). I was just a month shy of graduating when Chernobyl happened. It put the nail in the coffin of the U.S. nuclear industry which was already in decline after Three Mile Island. The job market for nuclear engineers dried up drastically.
I couldn't possibly agree with you more on the subject of trusting the science, and applaud you for taking a firm stance for that here. I also agree that Legasov's words about lies incurring a debt to the truth are monumentally applicable in today's world. There will be a reconning for all the lies being bandied about.
This series was such a moving masterpiece. It's so hard to not cry if you cry, I so feel your heartache and can grieve along with you. That's how amazing of a reactor you are, thank you.
Great reaction. One thing, not sure if anyone else already mentioned but the bridge of death is I think only urban legend. There is no proof of it and probably was included for dramatization.
Careful, you'll spoil her finding out the truth when she reads about it later. Wouldn't want anyone to correct any inaccurate impressions left by the show before the right time.
My dude, people still deny we landed on the moon. Deny the earth is round (well not round but you know what I mean). Deny 9/11 was a terrorist attack. Deny Jan 6th happened or was an "antifa or FBI psyop" (or some other bullshit). What is the cost of lies, indeed.
There’s an HBO podcast that discusses the history of Chernobyl and production of the series (also available here on TH-cam). Craig Mazin, Stellan Skarsgard, Jared Harris, et al all make appearances and give their commentary as well. Highly recommend listening to the podcast it sheds a lot of light on some key details of the events.
It sucks that we live in a world where almost everyone knows the name Kardashian but almost no one knows the names of certain people in this story like the 3 divers and the miners, Valery and Boris, and many others who are responsible for saving the lives of millions. To paraphrase Churchill "Never before was so much, owed by so many, to so few"
Agreed. Except it wasn't entirely "so few." There were literally thousands of people involved in responding to the disaster. One of the biggest take-aways of this show for me was just the incredible heroism (willing or unwilling) of the ordinary citizens called upon to deal with it.
@@rudewalrus5636 exactly just like all the scientists that worked together to figure it out. In the tv show they simplified the characters to streamline it more, but just think, the made up woman wasn't really there, dozens of scientists were working hard to figure it out and fix it, and are only mentioned in the after credits. What are THEIR names, why aren't they good enough to be in a tv show about the disaster, but a made up character is. Hey, no matter how telling the show is, it's still just a tv show, and many things left out, changed, and just made up for entertainment.
35:19 "Where I once would fear the cost of the truth, now I only ask: what is the cost of lies" - and THAT is how you write and end an amazing serie omg 👏 As you said, it's hard not to relate it to the current happenings around the world, which makes the focal thesis of this series (unfortunately) so timeless and relevant. I really appreciate your reaction to this series as not only did you handle the subject matter with great care and sensibility, but also hit the nail in the head so many times about several key themes/historical accuracy. As for future reactions recommendations, I'd say to give "Broadchurch" a watch if you can - the first season is really brilliant too in terms of how great it's shot, the music, acting and writing.
The amount of times you said "that's what everyone was telling me". I don't know what it is about this show but commenters are the absolute worst for spoiling this one. Just let people watch. This show is so much worse for it than others for some reason
13:49 "First the trial." Correction..."First, the cover-up". 16:38 Said in Paul Harvey's voice: "And that, is the rest of the story." 20:13 Ha! She said it.😁 15:42 "Anytime these two are together, nothing good is happening". Perhaps not narratively, but we are getting a master-class in acting. 24:22 Case in point right here. 👍 24:23 That's Mikhail Mouse from Moskva. 😉 33:12 🤣 Angela is a wise woman, she makes many of the same comments as I do. 😁 37:05 Damn, that's cold-blooded. Exactly my reaction too...fork Dyatlov with a five-pound chunk of irradiated graphite.
I really loved your reaction about Tchernobyl, you are so implied and emptahitc ! And it was nice to follow a reaction of someone that know about nuclear. I see that people often spoil the ending trivia, but I never see people debunking it so : -The so called "Bridge of death" is likely to be a myth. The bridge did exist but there is no evidence of people dying from watching the fire from it. -About the death toll, if 31 can seem infuriating, it is completely explainable. It correspond to the direct death from acute radiation syndrome. The other death are from cancer that occure decades after the irradiation. And there are several other cancer factor. So to estimate it, you have reveal mortality peak and proove that it exclusively come from to the catastrophy. It is really dificult, which explain the wide range in the estimation (from 4000 to 93 000, the most relevant estimation is 50 000 from what I remember). But more important, the final estimation of the death can only be done when all the irradiated people are dead, so several decades later. Yet, the USSR collapsed in 1991, only 4 years after the catastrophy, when it was to early to estimate the number of death from cancer. Whixh explain why the official death toll remain 31.
For what it's worth, the whole "graphite tipped control rods" thing was more or less invented by the show in order to present a reason the audience would easily grasp (as much as there can be one....this is nuclear physics, after all, and most of the population never passed science at high school). It was actually because the control rods and moderator rods were attached and moved together, and moving them all in at the same time removed all ways of holding back the reaction, then something broke and locked them in the most dangerous position. There's a great video by vlogbrothers ("What /Actually/ Happened at Chernobyl") which explains it much better.
🙄Graphite moderators on the control rods were very much cited by the investigation as a cause of the high reactivity coefficient, not made up by the show. It may be an oversimplification by the show to say they were just "tips" to keep costs down though, it was a bit more complex than that. The idea the rods jammed in a mostly-ineffective position is plausible, but not proven and not usually cited as the primary confirmed cause of high reactivity. It's not surprising you can find a TH-cam video that highlights that, but just remember you can find a TH-cam video on pretty much anything...
4:52 Even Bacho had a limit, which was not letting an animal suffer. As a veteran, I know where he is coming from. Seeing suffering can haunt your dreams and memories much later in life. I left the military 21+ years ago. Might as well have been yesterday.
40:04 The comparison is not a coincidence. The showrunners would not have been inspired to make this show when they did if not for the political shift of the previous years. The word choice is very deliberate. Unfortunately, as often happens with general criticisms of political systems, Chernobyl has gone the same way as Animal Farm and 1984 where Americans think it’s a criticism of socialism and communism but not their own government.
I am retired now, but I was working for ABC network news on the day that Sweden reported to the world that they had detected radiation from Chernobyl 1,100 km away. I'll never forget it. We knew it had to be horrific considering the distance. Turns out that we were learning more about the accident than citizens in the affected area. We were very aware that the USSR was not being forthcoming about it. Still, this series brought out many facts I never knew. Riveting.
I just saw that the channel History Buffs is going to be doing a review of this mini-series. The channel does reviews of movies or mini-series and compares them to the actual events and talks about how accurate the movies or shows were. Not sure when the episode or episodes will be uploaded to TH-cam, but I've seen episodes in the past and they seem genuinely well researched. So, if you're interested in finding out more about the disaster and how that compares to what happens in this show keep on eye on that channel.
In the actual trial, there were three other senior people at the #4 reactor who were charged. They were left out of the show for simplification, I guess. It would have complicated the narrative. Boris Rogozhin was the shift director of #4 and sentenced to 5 years labor. Alexander Kovalenko was the chief of #4 and sentenced to 3 years. Yuri Laushkin, one of the senior engineers, was sentenced to 2 years. Also, Valery Legasov didn't testify at the trial. His written testimony was entered as evidence.
Based just on the series portrayal, I was thinking about the sentences of the manager and chief engineer. While they obviously acted with regard to politics and not safety and put a lot of pressure on Dyatlov which carried into the accident, in the end they didn't have the in-the-room information that pointed to shutting down the test. Only Dyatlov could make that choice (in the show). I suppose they "should've known" about the reactor poisoning built up over those 10 hours, and shouldn't have given the job to the night shift, but it seems a far cry from pushing through the test over direct objections of operators and with the control room's data right in front of you. Still...definitely can't feel too sorry for them either.
@@jerodast I agree that Dyatlov bears a big chunk of the responsibility. I think that the sentences for the others were more for the failure to do the safety tests before it was signed off as finished. Except for Rogozhin, who as shift director for reactor #4, should have been on top of everything happening in the control room in #4 on that shift.
Thanks for toughing it out on this one. Your points about science in your commentary at the end is very much appreciated! If you want some positive modern news about Chernobyl despite *waves hands in general at everything going on in that part of the world*, it's worth reading up on the new protective structure at Chernobyl called "New Safe Confinement" (NSC). It's not just a building designed to contain radioactive material like the original Sarcophagus cover structure built in haste. NSC is an entire safe-deconstruction facility equipped with robotics and overhead cranes so that workers can slowly and safely dismantle the reactor and its building. It's designed to last a 100 years. To protect the workers building it, NSC was built away from the reactor building and rolled over top of it on rails when completed. It's the largest moving land-based structure ever built. There's a good overview of the project at th-cam.com/video/oY3fZH9VWhc/w-d-xo.html
The thing about facts is that they don't lie. but people can make mistakes interpreting the facts or have to make a decision based on a limited number of the facts. as for the truth: The truth is nothing without someone to shine a light on it.
Wonderful reaction to a series as always. I threw the suggestion out at episode 1, but the 1st season of The Terror. (I haven't seen the 2nd season, it's a new unconnected story.) Criminally underrated, another powerhouse preformance from Jared Harris and I also somehow only just realized the actor who played Vasily was a major character in it!
I'm an egineer but anyone could notice this: it's hard to think but there was an easy way to avoid this. Rising the power back to nominal at 3200 MWh when they got the news that the test is postponed for 10 h. That way the Xenon wouldn't have built up and the test would've been completed safely, like usual. But... the disaster might've happen sometime later and who knows, maybe with effects even more devastating.
One thing when I watched this that seemed outrageous and hollywood for me was the high ranking officer going I'll drive the lead lined truck with the meter to find out the actual radiation but he did in fact do it. Wild.
Legasov lied in Vienna, a scientist who was given incentive to not speak the truth, because the science didn't match the narrative. Legasov spoke the truth at the Soviet trial, and him and his testimony was scraped off the record, because the science didn't match the narrative. -"The science doesn't lie." I don't intend to argue, but I just find it amusing. I liked the series reaction.
The exact version is an original composition, but the closing song in this episode is the Russian/Ukrainian Orthoodox Funeral Hymn, Vechnaya Pamyat (also the Episode Title), meaning “Memory Eternal” “Their souls shall dwell with the blessed, and their remembrance is from generation to generation.”
You just never know. When I was a kid, I saw this movie, "Captain Newman, MD," about life in a WWII Army Air Corps Psych Hospital. I remember being pretty traumatized, and resolving that I would never, ever, get myself into that work. It wasn't until YEARS later that I was able to watch that movie again. I got freaked out again when the scene of the orderlies wrestling with a patient with a knife in a running shower came on. I remembered my promise to myself, then realized with shattering clarity that that was EXACTLY what I had ended up doing after all. Mysterious ways. (shivers)
I've been to Chernobyl twice and talked to many people about it. Although most in Ukraine didn't want to watch the TV show for obvious reasons, the ones who did told me this. There's only 2 things in the TV show that is not accurate. The first was the bridge of death. That bridge is 1-3 km away from their apartments. Also, from their apartments, they had a perfect view of the reactor, so there was no reason to go out there, in April, at night, when it was still freezing(april in Ukraine is still very cold). 2nd, the naked miners, although I am sad that isn't true because it brought a bit of humor to a tragedy, unfortunately it never happened.
Because the show doesn't explain it properly, and many viewers get confused about the "graphite tips", I want to explain it a bit more The "tip" wasn't the first thing that entered the core when the rods were lowered, they were already there. Control rods are the breaks, but they are also the accelerator. Water itself absorbs neutrons, so if the rods are pulled out the water that takes it place will still slow the reaction a bit, if not completely. So instead, the top part of the rod is boron to slow the reaction (the breaks) while the lower part is graphite to increase it (the accelerator) This means that when the control rods are up, the graphite part is in the core already. So, why did it matter then? Well, the reactor was going through big extremes already, and almost all the control rods were up. When they were lower simultaneously, while at the top the boron would slow it down, it caused an spike in reactivity at the bottom where the graphite was moving down through the core. This spike cause a lot of heat and steam and pressure, and, well we won't ever know what really happened, but something broke. There are bunch of theories about exactly what, but the main point is that the control rods got stuck in that precarious just starting to lower position, with the graphite still very much in the core at the lower part With the rods stuck, there was no chance anymore of stopping it, and as such the insane stress and pressure continued to build up rapidly until finally it blew up. Normally a failure of cooling or controlling a reaction would lead to a "meltdown", where the material gets too hot and starts melting through the containment. But here it was so fast and there was enough water flash turned into steam to instead blow off the lid
The terrible thing is something like Chernobyl had to happen. It was a cruel, ugly, necessary evil in a way, just like when the US nuked Japan twice in 1945, we had to learn through suffering the price of lies, the price of messing with nuclear reactors and not following safety procedures. It was a dark lesson we had to learn as a species. I hope all those that lost their lives in such a horrifically painful way found peace at the end. Legasov should be as celebrated as civil rights leaders and other important historical figures. The man was a goddamn hero.
Shortly after this series finished, I bought a newly written and published book called Manual for Survival; it was about Chernobyl and I learned quite a bit more about Chernobyl and what happened there. I also went to my local library and checked out a book about the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. One the eerie things about TMI is that 12 days before the accident, the movie The China Syndrome came out in theaters. There is also a very well-done three-part documentary about Three Mile Island on Netflix.
One of those things that people seem to need to learn over and over again are the cost of hubris and lies. This tragedy could have been so easily avoided as many others before and since. will we ever learn for good?
Thank you for this incredibly well articulated and empathetic reaction to the whole show, Angela. As others have said, a shame some things were spoiled, but glad you enjoyed the show and the montage nonetheless. And as others have said, the bench scene is phenomenal, so well acted from both of them, with such an emotional impact.
9:40 I dont think they made her look stupid. She was a victim of ignorance being put forth by the media and creating the narrative. They didn't tell her he radioactive. She thought he was just burned in the fire because that was the lie being told. I hate that anyone saw her that way. 34:45 one of the best lines of the whole series.
“Why worry about something that isn’t going to happen?” is pretty much an integral part of Russian culture. They call it “Avos’” which basically translates as “what if?”
The official number is one of those weird history technicalities, though, there's no Soviet Union to change that number today. It's like how Germany ended WWII only a couple of decades ago, because East and West Germany on their own weren't able to officially end the war, as they didn't start it.
Unfortunately this episode is the most “fictional” of the series. Legasov was not at the trial and did not give this testimony. It wasn’t until his tapes were released that the Soviet Union began to modify the reactors. The story of Chernobyl isn’t explained or even told in current day Russia. In 2020, Russian troops drove through the red forest, kicking up radioactive dust. Workers at the plant asked them about it and the soldiers didn’t know anything about the explosion.
Chernobyl was never a nuclear bomb. It’s could be called a dirty bomb due to it spreading radioactive material for miles and contaminating animals and life. But was wrong kind of fuel for it to be a nuclear bomb. Also the bridge of death is weird to me. If looked as much as I can, and there are no real records of this in old newspapers or anywhere on old Soviet or European papers or news. I did however find a story about a local man that passed away on the bridge doing some stunts. Also to anyone who may want to know, Pripyat was a closed city. Meaning if you didn’t work there or were visiting family you couldn’t visit or pass through. At the time the soviets considered all nuclear including power stations as state secrets, so no public. Also that’s why the Duga Radar was there for the KGB.
Now that it's done, a couple of things. 1. There are videos on YT about people who travel into the exclusion zone and meet up with residents who refused to leave their homes. 2. There is a company that does tours called Gamma travels. 3. Said company has recorded for Google Street View maps, up to the point where you can see the sarcophagus.
The caterpillar was great because it showed that life would, *could* continue in Chernobyl. That caterpillar is so small it had to be born after the disaster. All the radiation didn’t stop it.
What is it with YT reactors and their fake crying? So annyong.
Annyong!
I've watched all of her watching this and if you had done the same you'd understand she's empathetic and understands the pain thousands of people have gone through
@@GothSeiDank she is not a "fake cryer" . But you're right. There are a few
Are you actually stupid or just socially and emotionally dense? 💀
I know the reason for this! It's because, in the age of the internet, there are so many people out there who never leave the house that they don't recognize real human emotion, like you.
The amazing thing about Boris is that he said he hoped one day he would matter. And he ended up mattering twice. In 1988 he was in charge of rescue efforts in Armenia after a major earthquake.
Boris was a Real One.
Exactly! Boris saved a lot of lives in 2 major disasters. He was a Soviet, but he saved lives.
If I recall, there's a street named after him in Armenia.
@@paulhewes7333 What's him being a Soviet got to do with it? Assuming you're Anglo or American your governments done horrible shit too.
majority of soviets were heroes during these tragedies, just cause of few leaders and assholes, entire nation were judged and are still judged....
The bench scene between Boris and Valery is perhaps one of the best written and acted scenes I’ve seen in the last 10 years. It hits me every time! Two actors at their best. Wow.
100% agree. Sometimes simply a good script with good written dialogues and some actors that can fill their character with life convincingly is so much more powerful than all the action, special effects, over-constructed twists and "epicness" so many shows and movies rely on these days.
Is this sarcasm? It was boring and predictable scene.
yepp. Most powerful scene in the whole series. Always bring tears to my eyes when I watch it.
I'm so sorry people spoiled you for the montage at the end. I see it at everyone who does a reaction to Chernobyl and it annoys me every time, so thank you for coming right out and saying it. Somehow, people seem to think it's not spoilers if "it happened" in real life and it's not in the dramatized part of the series -- but the montage is brilliantly constructed narratively and it is there for a reason - catharsis. Learning the facts presented in the montage when the "story" is over is meant to be an emotional release from the series and it packs an amazing punch as new information, which people who have seen the series already or a few times seem to completely forget when they watch reaction channels, and they spoil it every time. I really wish people would learn this. It's *part of the series*.
I completely agree. It is such a dumb comment for people to say that it isn't a spoiler if it's based on historical fact. It's very simple: If you tell someone something that they don't know, but would find out by watching the show/movie then THAT is a spoiler.
I've said it before and I'll say it again...this world needs an enema.
@@dneill8493 Exactly! It's such a simple rule - if the show is going to reveal something, don't tell the reactor about it. Let the show do its work.
@@dneill8493ignorance is no excuse
@@SilentBob731 I'm sorry you don't care about how telling stories works. What are you here for, if you're not interested in an honest reaction? And you'll note that *Angela* said, right in the video, that she would have preferred not knowing what was in the epilogue to having been spoiled by her viewers, so this is coming straight from the person who is reacting to the show.
" For God's sake, Boris, you were the one who mattered most" The story arc of Boris and Valery relationship from Boris threatening to have Valery thrown out of a helicopter to this line is wonderful and heartbreaking all at the same time.
'Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid'.
My favorite line in the whole series.
My favorite was from the first episode.
"After we hear enough lies, we no longer recognize the truth."
And sadly still relevant even today, particularly in today’s political scene.
@@riffgroove It's based on how Russian propaganda works. That's why you see so many Russians giving vague answers like "who knows" when confronted with Russian vs Western narratives. They can't tell if there even is a truth anymore because they're just getting bombarded with so much bullshit that reality has become something completely warped and unreadable.
@@SutraRein-xy4qr I tend to think that politics cannot operate on mostly truth. Instead, there's meant to be mostly lies, because a political scene gains much from lying. It gains power, and a government needs power to survive for its country. It needs its secrets, and its people aren't told a lot because of their apparent threat. If the people were given all the power, we'd have nothing but chaos. Sad as it is, the people of any country, no matter how tyrannical or how free, are meant to be "sheep" to their shepherds of a government.
However, if you have such a government like the Soviet Union that attempted to operate not merely on "mostly lies" but on "all lies", you will have what happened for truth's sake after the Chernobyl disaster. That is, to operate a government solely on lies makes the truth too much of a bright spark to wave away. It's like thinking a person who has learned of their child's death can forever live in their grief and in denial of what has happened instead of committing to the effort towards accepting the truth of the loss and finding relief and comfort in even that.
the scene on the bench was the best imho. just phenomenal acting between 2 people
"If I was dying I would spill as many state secrets as I could..." well SOMEONE is never getting clearance lol
That's exactly why you would keep even that intention of yours a secret. Lol.
Spilling truth is meant to be like detonating a bomb, metaphorically kind of like how the truth was told after the Chernobyl disaster. But it isn't something that's initally shown around as if someone could get away with walking around with a grenade in their hand at every hour on their work shift at Walmart.
The critical thing about scientists is that we are not always right, but we are always willing to change our minds based on evidence.
Idk, there are some (unfortunately) dumb AND stubborn scientists out there. Bad combination.
Which makes it difficult to argue against zealots; they exploit the uncertainty and use it to dismiss everything.
@ don’t know where my comment went, but nobody said anything about zealots.
Yes. Agreed.
Evidence. Not doctrine, ideology or political correctness.
@@nicholassmith7984 "God of the Gaps"
Two things for you. My undergraduate advisor (later my dissertation committee chair) was phoned by NSA at 4 in the morning our time on April 26, 1986. He was quizzed as to what could possibly be creating such a massive flare in northern Ukraine visible to (and alarmingly so) to NORAD. I later spent the summer of 1986 looking at freshly de-classified imagery of the region assessing the damage to agriculture and vegetation in the wake of the accident. I cannot watch this excellent presentation without fact-checking against my own fairly extensive knowledge. From a standpoint of acting and riveting storytelling it is awesome. Oh and the second thing? Remember that General that drove the truck with the dosimeter on it, rather than expose one of his own men? Gen. Vladimir Pikalov was a three-time hero of the Soviet Union in WWII, and commanded the chemical warfare troops. It is said in a macabre joke that the shielding on the truck was to protect the radiation from Pikalov, not the reverse. He died in March of 2003 after a long, totally badass life.
Its very simple.
If you tell someone something that THEY DON'T KNOW, but would find out by watching the show/movie then THAT is a spoiler.
She also mentioned she'd read up about Chernobyl after the series. We better not talk about anything she'd read there either, wouldn't want to spoil those un-dramatized written words about certain facts with other un-dramatized written words about the same facts.
@@jerodast so you want to spoil reactions and get butt-hurt when you feel called out, got it
@@jerodast Buddy, just... stop digging.
Wrong. A "spoiler" is something that "spoils" the enjoyment of a show or movie or whatever. It's in the name.
@@miller-joel telling someone what's going to happen on the show definitely SPOILS THE ENJOYMENT of experiencing it for herself. as you said, it's in the name.
Hands-down, the best mini-series I've ever watched.
Thanks for letting us revisit it with you.
Richard Harris was an outstanding actor, but his son, Jared Harris, is next level. He’s so damned good.
So we could say that he's not terrible, but he's great? 🙂
Each episode had a corresponding podcast where the creators went over in detail every historical fact versus every change they made to present them here. It's a fascinating listen.
I've listened to that show like 12 times. Craig Mazin is a great guy. And I loved the bonus episode with Jared Harris
Dyatlov was created by that society. He ran away from home as a boy, managed to get an education. Married. He Lost his 9-year-old son to Leukemia, most likely because of his job working close to dangerous materials. As he's played here, he comes across as a bitterly unhappy man who's already lost what he loved and cares about very little. I can muster an atom of sympathy for him.
plus its a tv show so don't believe everything you see, its for entertainment not truth. Also he has a government trying to cover it up and blame him for the problem, do you know if he actually was the problem? No. You need facts to decide if he made mistakes, or just invented facts against him to cover it up by the government. Hey, China and Covid, the same thing. Hide the problem that will fix it right? lol
@@Pamtroy So true.
Dyatlov was indeed known for being abrasive, but by most accounts of surviving plant workers he was nowhere near as villainous as the HBO miniseries made him out to be. He was more combative towards the Soviet State than he was towards his colleagues.
@@adamohmmeter Read that too
Dyatlov was very much a result of the culture. When someone has grown up with the depth of understanding that the State will always win and *doesn't care about individuals*, ending up being seen as cold and unfeeling is the believable outcome.
The story isn’t just about the accident, it’s the story of the people who lived, suffered, and died. The series is the people’s story. The people sacrificed everything - their health, their home, their professional reputations and careers, even their very lives to do what the situation required of them.
They went willingly to their deaths to save others, to save their countrymen, to save the people of neighboring countries, they sacrificed all for the sake of the greater good. As the character Khomyuk says so solemnly, “they died rescuing each other”.
The story may get details wrong or changed for dramatic effect but the series makes the viewer feel the experience, trauma, and emotion of the events surrounding Chernobyl. The story is not just the accident’s story, it is the people’s story.
@@neptunusrex5195 Yes! This is why I do not care much about the scientific or dramatic liberties taken in this show. The institutional and cultural failures that lead to the accident (and don't kind yourself: democratic capitalist systems have their own different but equally powerful pressures to not rock the boat or tell the whole truth as the Soviet communist system) and the "we simply must deal with this" heroism are all true in the sense that any storytelling is true. So what that none of our three (Khomyuk, Scherbina, Legasov) were involved in the actual trial of the three reactor managers. It is still a great scene.
The story is about the cost of lies. Simple as that.
There's a full circle moment, where Legasov is explaining to them, and us, how a RBMK reactor works. Where one of the first interactions he has with their authority is one telling him to explain to him how a reactor works and he laughs at the idea, and we all scoff at the hubris of such a question. But he exactly had to work on how to do that, to get his point across to the board and history. And it works, we understand without needing to understand everything.
It also has one of my favourite pieces of acting in the show for me, where you see Legasov say, 'It is beautiful...' and he smiles for a moment, like he really loves it. Great little detail from Jared Harris.
The Bridge of Death thing is apparently an urban myth--most people who have researched Chernobyl have said that there weren't actually a bunch of people watching from the bridge. The fact that the explosion happened in the middle of the night meant that people slept right through it or at least weren't going outside to look at it. Hope that's a little comforting.
Also, I think that the power of the final episode is that, despite having seen the aftermath of the explosion, I watched the scenes from the control room with a palpable sense of dread, just hoping *something* would happen to stop the disaster that I knew was inevitably coming. This show plays people's emotions like a violin. Masterful filmmaking!
Of course, no one would go to the bridge at night. In addition, it is about 1 km from the houses. It's quite far. The bridge got its name due to another fact.
I believe it was called "The Bridge of Death" more for the fact that the bridge was part of the primary roadway into the plant site, and many workers who crossed that bridge (firefighters, liquidators) would die.
@@SCharlesDenniconThe Red Forest was adjacent to the Bridge of Death. The trees died and turned red. Pine is known to have a lethal dose of radiation similar to that of humans. This bridge at one time had huge doses of radiation because one of the two beams passed through it. This is also a theory, but more plausible.
It is a fact that two beams passed from both sides of Pripyat that night, but did not hit the town itself. It looks like God's help.
The bridge itself is probably a myth, probably - hard to tell what’s true in this story at all because there was so much disinformation.
My wife has some friends who lived not far from Pripyat, and their telling of it was that there were definitely people whose curiosity was… bad for their health.
Correct... when the series aired some people appeared that were in that bridge that night and watched the extrange lights and were still alive today..iirc they were still children and now they were in their 40/50s
Valery Legasov tried to take his own life on several occasions, but failed. He succeeded exactly 2 years to the day after the accident.
He was survived by his wife and two adult children.
There are amazing podcasts for each episode of the series, where the creators go into depth what artistic licenses were taken, and into more detail that didn't make it into the episode.
The podcasts can be listened to after each episode as they do not spoil anything coming up in later episodes (unlike TH-cam commenters).
The graphite tips on the control rods did serve a purpose beyond just being cheaper. They made regulating the reaction easier as it was never considered all control rods being withdrawn and reinserted at the same time. Had the control rod channels not warped due to the excessive heat, locking the graphite tips within the radioactive core, the AZ-5 button probably would still have worked as designed. As with all accidents it isn't a single thing that went wrong, but a lot of disastrous elements coming together to make the accident happen.
The propaganda number of 2000 Roentgen told to the Germans may have been so they could obtain the "Joker" robot. Had they given them the real number, the robot may not have been delivered. You could argue that they at least tried, even if it ended up not working.
FINALLY, an appropriate reaction to the "you were the one who mattered most" line. Thank you, FLG!
51:22 Scientists would be the _first_ to tell you that they are not always right. Scientists work with hypotheses and theories, with which they explain reality as accurately as possible given the available information (including careful testing of those theories, etc...). The point is that if new information comes to light that contradicts those theories, scientists will happily admit that they were wrong - and adjust the theory accordingly.
I wish that were true, but scientists and technocrats are human, just like everyone else, and subject to the same moral weaknesses.
yeah this kind of mythologizing of scientists or any kind of expert is almost equally dangerous compared to dismissing experts as "elitists". The whole point is that it's not binary. You can always cherry pick "experts" and information to fit your world view. What makes scientific understanding valuable is assessing evidence, sometimes conflicting, in context and without bias. And we should expect every adult to be able to do it, not assign it to the realm of Scientists, the Truth Handlers.
Science doesn't lie, but scientists do. Specially if they are captured by pharma. The "experts" lied about EVERYTHING since 2020. Pharma eventually admitted they had not even tested you-know-what for transmission, after claiming you-know-what were 100% effective. They did LIE. They did not get it "wrong." It was completely deliberate. If you can't admit that, you're the one with your head in the sand...
Indeed. Saying "scientists are always right" is the most anti-science statement anyone can make.
@@jerodast Not all experts are scientists, and not all scientists act like experts in society. You've made a straw man argument against scientists here, based on obvious problems with opinionated experts. You are also confusing basic critical thinking with actually doing science. The scientific method entails much more than just "assessing evidence", and almost always requires more knowledge about a highly specific subject than can be obtained by a lay person lacking a firm theoretical foundation.
"They heard me. They listened to you." The simple distinction there is so monumentally impactful.
@WraithWTF i love that line, and it really showed when Valery was trying to give the rest of his testimony, and the court was trying to cut him off.
My older brother is a former Navy nuc, and a current civilian reactor operator. He has a lot of little complaints about details in this show, especially "the baby absorbed it all," but he does say that Legasov's description of reactor dynamics in this episode is the very best one he has ever seen for a non-technical audience.
True the baby didn't absorb the radiation. But if speaking in non scientific simplified terms it's understandable. The baby didn't absorb the radiation instead, it would however have absorbed some of the radioactive material instead of the mothers body retaining it..
@Markus117d Dose is dose. There is no sense in which the baby's absorbed radiation reduced the mother's. The absolute intensity (Bequerels or Curies), the absorbed dose (grays or rads), and the "equivalent dose" (which is fuzzier because it tries to quantify the biological harm of a dose which varies by radiation type and absorbed dose) measured in sieverts or rem (roentgen equivalent man) and these are defined in much more complex ways. The units they keep talking about in this show, roentgen, really only apply to X and gamma rays in air. The radiation from alpha and beta decay are a greater part of the hazards in an open fission reactor. But cells receiving energy from exposure are cells receiving energy from exposure. Let's put it this way: if you are standing next to an open reactor core next to someone else you are not any safer than you would be standing there by yourself. And that is, essentially, the assertion they make with the "baby absorbed it instead" remark.
@evilpenguinmas You missed the point i was saying, it didn't absorb the radiation, It did however absorb some of the radioactive materials ingested ect by the mother, just it absorbs non radioactive materials. The body can't distinguish between a stable element and it's isotopes..
And if speaking in a non scientific manner for TV audiences it does get the point across, without going into overly technical explanations..
I'm a former navy Nuc and retired nuclear engineer. Your brother is absolutely correct. The show is great, but it plays fast and loose with a lot of details about radiation effects and reactors.
@@Markus117d I didn't miss it! I'm just don't think it makes any difference. It's just something the show gets wrong. It doesn't diminish the show. It's just something completely technically inaccurate in there so they can say the line about babies sacrificing for their mothers. I wasn't trying to criticize you in any way. I get what you mean, it just wouldn't make any difference. The radioactive isotopes would be taken up by the baby's cells and the mother's cells in the same proportion. I'll admit that to the extent that the fetus has tissues whose cells are dividing more rapidly than the same tissues in an adult, there might be a somewhat higher absorption in the fetus than in the mother, but this is not because it making less available to the mother. I don't want to make more of this than we have. I see your point. I hope you see mine. Let's agree it is a really good show!
That bit of dialogue beteeen Boris and Valery is a real tear jerker, amazing writing and acting. That serie has to be the most powerful and impactful that i've ever watched. Love your reactions! 😊
"Why are bad things always so pretty?" The question I ask myself every time I think about my ex.
I'm so glad you at least acknowledged the relevance of this story to the world today in general and the United States in particular. The creators of the show didn't make it simply because they wanted to talk about internal Soviet Union machinations in the 80s. It's about today. Climate Change. Covid. Politics. All of it. I've never seen a reactor even hint at that in their reactions. Which is understandable because they don't want to alienate anybody, sure, but it's a totally superficial view of the story to see it simply as a picture of a specific time and place in the past. So thank you!
The person who played Dyatlov was Paul Ritter, a much loved British actor who sadly passed away from cancer a couple of years ago, he was only 54.
The series is a thematic masterpiece. Every single individual scene provides a new answer to the thematic question, “What is the cost of lies?”
Vichnaya Pamyat means Eternal Memory (I think). I think it’s an apt title for the finale, seeing as this should never be forgotten. If i ever become a history teacher, Chernobyl will be on my list of things to show my students.
Memory Eternal yes.
вичная памят
It's a common phrase in any of the Orthodox sects that use church slavonic during memorial services, called panikhidas.
Memory eternal
Memory eternal
Blessed repose
Memory eternal
Fitting to remember those who died and the forgotten ones who lived on to carry the weight
I appreciate how you lift other reactors up. I frequently come across your comments posted on other reactors' channels, and you are so positive and encouraging
Thank you very much. I watched this show with you again. Some things even became clearer. I agree with you about the emotions from everything I saw.
The creepy mouse is Soviet Mickey Mouse. Чебурашка, they had their own version and his own animated tv show etc...
When Legasov is taken away from the court room, its always kind of striking to me that when he enters the room he looks around, and notices theres no windows and a drain/grate in the middle of the floor. Most Soviet people from that era would have been familiar with stories of the red terror and the purges from their parents or older family members.
Tens or hundreds of thousands or more, people taken into dark rooms/basements, brutally killed, and the blood and brain matter etc just washed down the drain in the floor and the bodies hauled off to unmarked graves. He's in there fully expecting to be killed.
They're still doing that in Ukraine.
Russians, that is.
You wanted to find empathy for Dyatlov, in the early part of his career he worked building nuclear submarines. In an accident he was dosed with 1 Sv of radiation. He survived but years later his young boy passed from leukemia. He is reported to have blamed the radiation. He was tough as nails, some respected him... others despised him. He spent the last years of his life trying to redeem the names/characters of his men in the control room that night. He wrote a book before he passed in 1995.
from what i read the "bridge of death" was not nicknamed as such *after* chernobil disaster, but actually *before* due to car crash that happened on it
After Chernobyl Unit 4 Exploded, the other Units kept on running and producing electricity. Unit 1 was shutdown Nov. 1996, Unit 2 was shutdown after a turbine fire in 1991 and Unit 3 was shutdown for inspections and repairs 1n 1997. Unit 4 and 5 were under construction at time of the explosion in Unit 4 and were never completed. In 1999-2000 it was decided to permanently decommission all units. It was very lucky that the "accident" at Unit 4 didn't melt down the other reactors. Thank God (or Deity of your choice or not)
well if you actually watched the show and read up on history, wasn't a diety that prevented that, it was the hard work of the people represented on the show. did you even watch the show? lol.
I thank the spaghetti monster.
@@eolsunderPeople that are very religious, will just say, they were guided by [insert God here].
Something to consider about the loss of reactor 4 at Chernobyl in 1986, that is not talked about in the series, is that despite all that radiation damage to the local environment where a 30km exclusion zone is in effect due to the risk to human life, reactors 1 through 3 were continued to be operated until the last was shut down in 2000.
Reactor 2 was shut down in 1991. Note that the possible reason why the fire fighters were not overly concerned when the attended the reactor 4 incident was that in 1982 reactor 2 suffered a damaging fire that resulted in a temporary reactor shutdown while fire fighting crews fought the blaze.
Reactor 1 was shut down in 1996 so a decade after the 1986 accident.
Reactor 3 was finally shutdown in 2000.
Human beings had to work in that environment to run and safely shutdown those other reactors. In other words the story doesn't end with episode 5.
Up to 5000 workers had to work in the immediate area of reactor 4 to erect the Sarcophagus that served as an interim safty containment. This took 6 months to erect, but was always considered temporary. A more durable New Safe Confinement structure (intended to last 100 years) was built off site and then moved to the area and positioned over the sarcophagus. It took a decade to build was moved into place in 2016 and declared finished in 2017. So not that long ago. And while it was built off site those who erected it over the sarcophagus and completed the process, again all had to operate in the immediate area of reactor 4 where levels of radiation are still lethal, and likely to remain that way for hundreds if not thousands of years. The NSC will need replacing at some point, so this will be a recurring issue.
Chernobyl is the wrolds worst nuclear disaster rated at level 7 on the INES (International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale), and is matched in this level only by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 Japan. Yet they are vastly different in scope. Fukushima was largely limited to a 50km area around the plant, while Chernobyl reached as far as the UK for radioactive fallout. Note that there is no level 8 on the INES.
Chernobyl saw the evacuation of 350,000 people and Fukushima saw the evacuation of 150,000 people. None of those from Chernobyl have been able to return, where as about 90,000 (60%) evacuated from the area have been able to return. Both disasters impossed 'permanent' exclussion zones. For Fukushima this is about 340 square km, where as Cherobyl it is about 2,600 (yes that is twenty six hundred) square km. That is about 7.7 times larger for Chernobyl. While the Japanese evacuated out to a 50km radius, many of these areas are now considered safe to return, while a 30km radius around Chernobyl will not be likely to see human habitation for thousands of years.
On a different topic, here's something I love so much about the series - "How does an RBMK reactor explode?", or some variant of that question, is asked at least once in each of the first four episodes (by different characters for different effects), and then, in episode five, we get the answer from Legasov, as if he's reaching back through time and answering each and every instance of the question being asked: "*That* is how an RBMK reactor explodes. Lies."
I love the honesty in your reactions. It's amazing how you feel the stories you watch. thank you.
And that is why Chernobyl is HBO's Best Mini-Series, Nuff Said.
to give more details about Legasov. He had a wife and two kids, and his wife were very much involved in getting the reactors fixed, she wrote papers too about the reactors.
And yes, he killed himself to put attention on the truth of the matter. But.... the wife is a hidden hero
My friend is an engineer who works for a really big company that does contruct power plants (nuclear and normal) he has 10y worth of experience educating the staff who manages the control room. And he always said to me "Listen mate, you sleep better if you don´t know who manages nuclear power plants and the skillset those ppl have"
Immediately thought of Homer Simpson
"Do you not know, my son, with how very little wisdom the world is governed?"
Pope Julius III
@@funnylilgalreacts Interesting thing is that , Homer Simpson should have died at the very first episode, that glowing green container he carries around carelessly is said to contain one of the most radioactive materials, which is a form of cobalt, the warnings on the container literally say "drop and run" a lot of people have measured that he probably would have died only minutes after getting home from work in the opening.
Also a different topic and an interesting story, there is a content creator known as Pravus, who mostly does strategy and civilization building games, he and his wife had been trying for a child for something like five years, but it never worked. The doctors couldn't figure out why, nothing was wrong with them, they just didn't seem to be having children. Then one day, they finally had a child, heck they even have a second child on the way. Sometimes there are some mysteries that even science cannot solve.
I am going to assume you are referring to this in a "global" sense. I have to respectfully disagree with regard to those who staff nuclear plants in the US. I worked for many years doing control room design (i.e., evaluating control room design from the perspective of what is know as ergonomics or human factors). I worked at many different power plants, and can say without reservation the control room staff are extremely professional (most came from the Navy having served on various nuclear powered vessels). I was IN a control room at one point, during a refueling outage....we were replacing ALL of the labeling on the Emergency Diesel Generator panels...someone out in the plant tripped a breaker and the control room (and much of the plant) lost all power. I watched this operations crew go from sitting around eating pizza, it was about 2am and lunch for this shift, to immediately on station...with much of the attention AT the Emergency Diesel Generator panels. They restored power in a matter of minutes...only glancing at our control panel drawings a couple times to double check they were operating the current control. Absolutely amazing. So...I take a bit of offense when folks cast shade on our NPP operators. I wish I were that talented.
It is the same in all industries. The world is constructed on lies told by those who shout loudest not by those truly knowledgeable or honourable
The series is heavy & sad, exquisite & beautiful. Glad you made it through the whole thing :)
I believe Gorbachev said that he believed Chernobyl to be one of the main contributing factors to the fall of the Soviet union.
…Do you believe that because that is literally word for word what this episode tells you at the end?
sorry no. The fall of the Soviet union is not from instances or occurances, but by the leadership. Those running the country are responsible. Was Gorbachev leading the country at that time? Then he is one of those responsible. The US is in a bad state when it comes to healthcare, crime, prisons, and many other things. Those problems aren't caused by accidents, injuries, etc. Those problems are caused by those in charge not fixing the problems. Simple as that.
@@beefjezos2713 Did it? I don't remember. I've seen this referenced from a book he wrote.
@@eolsunder You're not wrong; but some events can be identified as tipping-points. The Chernobyl disaster could be claimed as one. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was also around this time, and that could be claimed as one as well.
I wonder what the tipping-point for the US will be.
@nicholassmith7984 "No great civilization is conquered from without before it has first destroyed itself from within."
I’m impressed by how many of the people involved in this in front of and behind the camera went on to work on Andor
The true achievement in this particular episode is managing to deliver and immense amount of information and context and to do so engagingly and without extreme flashy elements. The break to have the conversation between Boris and Legasov really grounded Boris' self image and how wrong he was. We he confronted the senior staffers after landing in the helicopter is the test of his character and the remarkable man he had underneath. Amazing!
Phenomenal reaction!
I love that you mentioned Natalie. Tell that girl to watch Severance!
The best, and most tragic, science lesson I ever got.
And that final 'what is the cost of lies?' 😢
It was more of mismanagement lesson and sovok mentality demonstration.
RBMKs were ok by design and there are still functioning ones today.
P.S. passenger airplanes can be dangerous if stalled or above mach 1, pilots just need to follow the rules to the letter.
@@Alex-wg1mbSo graphite doesn't accelerate the nuclear reaction? 🙄
What is the cost of blind obedience to authority?
What is the cost of lies? About tree fiddy, comrade.
What is the cost of lies? Well here in the US we're sure going to find out in about 4 years or so eh?
The series is a dramatisation and they were probably unfairly harsh towards Dyatlov. He was very experienced with these reactors and, while a harsh and unpleasant boss, he most certainly didn't go into denial about what happened, as depicted in the show.
I recently read the book Midnight in Chernobyl and I came to feel a lot more empathy for him. The higher-ups were trying to push the blame onto the operators and Dyatlov was very outspoken in the defense of his men such as Toptinov and Akimov. And after the accident he wrote to the parents of these men to let them know that what was being said about them was untrue and that they did their jobs well.
There is an interview with him on youtube. I take it you're already acquainted with That Chernobyl Guy? How does those match with the book? I can't remember if TCG used the book in all his work, but...
@gottagowork not seen him actually, so can't say. I work in the nuclear industry and my manager recommended the book after we were discussing the HBO series
of course you don't just accept the "facts" on these people or how they are represented in a tv show. You also don't demonize Dyatlov past the tv show, because it is a tv show and they make up stuff to make the show more appealing in various ways. Like the divers that went into turn on the water, they didn't go into danger, there wasn't that much radioactivity, and they had no problems doing the job, all made up for the TV show. So if you want to know the truth about Dyatlov read up on him and learn. He could have been stupid, or he could have just been called that by the soviet leaders who were trying to blame him instead of them accepting responsibility. A communist government trying to hide facts? say it isn't so! You all remember Covid with China right? lol
I watched this with my husband who studied the Chernobyl disaster in the Navy Nuclear Power school. They go through everything: the interviews, the testimony, the case notes of how they responded. I waited until this episode to tell you:
1, the trial is word for word exactly as recorded. So much so that my husband was able to say exactly what Boris, Ulana and Legasov said before it was said on TV.
2, the KGB did take all the research and recordings and everyone in the trial was forced to keep it secret except!
3, Legasov knew he was dying so he aligned himself with American CIA spy's and gave them everything: the recordings, the research, the interviews, the timelines of events. In return his family was brought to America for protection. He committed suicide and left the tapes for American spy's to intercept before the KGB found him. This is why all UN aligned Nuclear military schools teach this disaster and it is how we know all of this information.
I was in the NNPS in '79-80. We would have benefited from the knowledge gained from Chernobyl. At the time, the only reactor disaster we learned about was the 1961 SL-1 accident in Idaho.
A correction though. Perhaps your husband is mistaken. Valery Legasov did not testify at the trial. His testimony was entered as a written transcript of an interview he had with the KGB months before the trial. Also Ulana wasn't there because she didn't exist.
Given that Ulana was a composite character made up for the show, seems like it'd be difficult to know what she was going to say from the trial recordings.
@GeraldH-ln4dv your right and i was wrong. They read Legasov's written testimony. What the actor said was word for word what was written.
Ulana was not a real person but her testimony in the show matches the timeline of events exactly as it is recorded. In that way, my husband was able to say what happened.
I'm sorry this information didn't get to you. This must be incredibly frustrating.
@jerodast yes Ulana was a composite. They don't study just the recordings, they studied everything. Her characters testimony is that of the timeline of events. Having studied everything and all aspects of the timeline of events, my husband was able to say exactly as it was reported in the show
@@lizgreer6888 Chernobyl had a later effect on me, although it happened after I was finished with my 6 years. When I got out, I went back to school to complete a nuclear engineering degree helped by the credit hours given for all of the Navy school time (much less than it is now, which I hear is 90 hours total now). I was just a month shy of graduating when Chernobyl happened. It put the nail in the coffin of the U.S. nuclear industry which was already in decline after Three Mile Island. The job market for nuclear engineers dried up drastically.
This series always puts me in mind of the Covid pandemic, and how so many governments mismanaged the response for the sake of political expediency.
For the sake of their Big Pharma stock profits, I think you mean.
Citizen X, And The Band Played On, Band of Brothers - because we need a balance off the wacky Wednesdays and Fridays. ;) I live for Who and Farscape.
Well done ... excellent reaction throughout the whole series. 👏
I couldn't possibly agree with you more on the subject of trusting the science, and applaud you for taking a firm stance for that here. I also agree that Legasov's words about lies incurring a debt to the truth are monumentally applicable in today's world. There will be a reconning for all the lies being bandied about.
Pavel's a conscript, not a volunteer.
This series was such a moving masterpiece. It's so hard to not cry if you cry, I so feel your heartache and can grieve along with you. That's how amazing of a reactor you are, thank you.
It's an amazing series happy to have watched it with you.
Great reaction. One thing, not sure if anyone else already mentioned but the bridge of death is I think only urban legend. There is no proof of it and probably was included for dramatization.
Careful, you'll spoil her finding out the truth when she reads about it later. Wouldn't want anyone to correct any inaccurate impressions left by the show before the right time.
Tragically, a lot of people *_today_* still deny the events surrounding the Chernobyl disaster.
That's because RBMK reactor cores DON'T explode, comrade!
My dude, people still deny we landed on the moon. Deny the earth is round (well not round but you know what I mean). Deny 9/11 was a terrorist attack. Deny Jan 6th happened or was an "antifa or FBI psyop" (or some other bullshit). What is the cost of lies, indeed.
Well, there are "people" today denying the earth is a globe, so...
Vichnaya Pamyat = Eternal Memory
Right now there are still reactors like that operational in the world. the other 3 Reactors in Chernobyl continued to work more or less till 1995.
There’s an HBO podcast that discusses the history of Chernobyl and production of the series (also available here on TH-cam). Craig Mazin, Stellan Skarsgard, Jared Harris, et al all make appearances and give their commentary as well. Highly recommend listening to the podcast it sheds a lot of light on some key details of the events.
It sucks that we live in a world where almost everyone knows the name Kardashian but almost no one knows the names of certain people in this story like the 3 divers and the miners, Valery and Boris, and many others who are responsible for saving the lives of millions.
To paraphrase Churchill "Never before was so much, owed by so many, to so few"
Agreed. Except it wasn't entirely "so few." There were literally thousands of people involved in responding to the disaster. One of the biggest take-aways of this show for me was just the incredible heroism (willing or unwilling) of the ordinary citizens called upon to deal with it.
@@rudewalrus5636 exactly just like all the scientists that worked together to figure it out. In the tv show they simplified the characters to streamline it more, but just think, the made up woman wasn't really there, dozens of scientists were working hard to figure it out and fix it, and are only mentioned in the after credits. What are THEIR names, why aren't they good enough to be in a tv show about the disaster, but a made up character is. Hey, no matter how telling the show is, it's still just a tv show, and many things left out, changed, and just made up for entertainment.
35:19 "Where I once would fear the cost of the truth, now I only ask: what is the cost of lies" - and THAT is how you write and end an amazing serie omg 👏
As you said, it's hard not to relate it to the current happenings around the world, which makes the focal thesis of this series (unfortunately) so timeless and relevant. I really appreciate your reaction to this series as not only did you handle the subject matter with great care and sensibility, but also hit the nail in the head so many times about several key themes/historical accuracy.
As for future reactions recommendations, I'd say to give "Broadchurch" a watch if you can - the first season is really brilliant too in terms of how great it's shot, the music, acting and writing.
The amount of times you said "that's what everyone was telling me". I don't know what it is about this show but commenters are the absolute worst for spoiling this one. Just let people watch. This show is so much worse for it than others for some reason
13:49 "First the trial." Correction..."First, the cover-up". 16:38 Said in Paul Harvey's voice: "And that, is the rest of the story." 20:13 Ha! She said it.😁
15:42 "Anytime these two are together, nothing good is happening". Perhaps not narratively, but we are getting a master-class in acting. 24:22 Case in point right here. 👍
24:23 That's Mikhail Mouse from Moskva. 😉 33:12 🤣 Angela is a wise woman, she makes many of the same comments as I do. 😁
37:05 Damn, that's cold-blooded. Exactly my reaction too...fork Dyatlov with a five-pound chunk of irradiated graphite.
as dramatized as it is, the courtroom expositions are the best explanation of the disaster ever committed to page or screen.
I really loved your reaction about Tchernobyl, you are so implied and emptahitc !
And it was nice to follow a reaction of someone that know about nuclear.
I see that people often spoil the ending trivia, but I never see people debunking it so :
-The so called "Bridge of death" is likely to be a myth. The bridge did exist but there is no evidence of people dying from watching the fire from it.
-About the death toll, if 31 can seem infuriating, it is completely explainable. It correspond to the direct death from acute radiation syndrome. The other death are from cancer that occure decades after the irradiation. And there are several other cancer factor. So to estimate it, you have reveal mortality peak and proove that it exclusively come from to the catastrophy. It is really dificult, which explain the wide range in the estimation (from 4000 to 93 000, the most relevant estimation is 50 000 from what I remember). But more important, the final estimation of the death can only be done when all the irradiated people are dead, so several decades later.
Yet, the USSR collapsed in 1991, only 4 years after the catastrophy, when it was to early to estimate the number of death from cancer. Whixh explain why the official death toll remain 31.
For what it's worth, the whole "graphite tipped control rods" thing was more or less invented by the show in order to present a reason the audience would easily grasp (as much as there can be one....this is nuclear physics, after all, and most of the population never passed science at high school). It was actually because the control rods and moderator rods were attached and moved together, and moving them all in at the same time removed all ways of holding back the reaction, then something broke and locked them in the most dangerous position. There's a great video by vlogbrothers ("What /Actually/ Happened at Chernobyl") which explains it much better.
🙄Graphite moderators on the control rods were very much cited by the investigation as a cause of the high reactivity coefficient, not made up by the show. It may be an oversimplification by the show to say they were just "tips" to keep costs down though, it was a bit more complex than that. The idea the rods jammed in a mostly-ineffective position is plausible, but not proven and not usually cited as the primary confirmed cause of high reactivity. It's not surprising you can find a TH-cam video that highlights that, but just remember you can find a TH-cam video on pretty much anything...
4:52 Even Bacho had a limit, which was not letting an animal suffer. As a veteran, I know where he is coming from. Seeing suffering can haunt your dreams and memories much later in life. I left the military 21+ years ago. Might as well have been yesterday.
40:04 The comparison is not a coincidence. The showrunners would not have been inspired to make this show when they did if not for the political shift of the previous years. The word choice is very deliberate. Unfortunately, as often happens with general criticisms of political systems, Chernobyl has gone the same way as Animal Farm and 1984 where Americans think it’s a criticism of socialism and communism but not their own government.
Sometimes you have to hear and see what you don't want to hear and see to know what you don't want to hear and see.
I am retired now, but I was working for ABC network news on the day that Sweden reported to the world that they had detected radiation from Chernobyl 1,100 km away. I'll never forget it. We knew it had to be horrific considering the distance. Turns out that we were learning more about the accident than citizens in the affected area. We were very aware that the USSR was not being forthcoming about it. Still, this series brought out many facts I never knew. Riveting.
I just saw that the channel History Buffs is going to be doing a review of this mini-series. The channel does reviews of movies or mini-series and compares them to the actual events and talks about how accurate the movies or shows were. Not sure when the episode or episodes will be uploaded to TH-cam, but I've seen episodes in the past and they seem genuinely well researched. So, if you're interested in finding out more about the disaster and how that compares to what happens in this show keep on eye on that channel.
In the actual trial, there were three other senior people at the #4 reactor who were charged. They were left out of the show for simplification, I guess. It would have complicated the narrative. Boris Rogozhin was the shift director of #4 and sentenced to 5 years labor. Alexander Kovalenko was the chief of #4 and sentenced to 3 years. Yuri Laushkin, one of the senior engineers, was sentenced to 2 years. Also, Valery Legasov didn't testify at the trial. His written testimony was entered as evidence.
Based just on the series portrayal, I was thinking about the sentences of the manager and chief engineer. While they obviously acted with regard to politics and not safety and put a lot of pressure on Dyatlov which carried into the accident, in the end they didn't have the in-the-room information that pointed to shutting down the test. Only Dyatlov could make that choice (in the show). I suppose they "should've known" about the reactor poisoning built up over those 10 hours, and shouldn't have given the job to the night shift, but it seems a far cry from pushing through the test over direct objections of operators and with the control room's data right in front of you. Still...definitely can't feel too sorry for them either.
@@jerodast I agree that Dyatlov bears a big chunk of the responsibility. I think that the sentences for the others were more for the failure to do the safety tests before it was signed off as finished. Except for Rogozhin, who as shift director for reactor #4, should have been on top of everything happening in the control room in #4 on that shift.
Thanks for toughing it out on this one. Your points about science in your commentary at the end is very much appreciated! If you want some positive modern news about Chernobyl despite *waves hands in general at everything going on in that part of the world*, it's worth reading up on the new protective structure at Chernobyl called "New Safe Confinement" (NSC). It's not just a building designed to contain radioactive material like the original Sarcophagus cover structure built in haste. NSC is an entire safe-deconstruction facility equipped with robotics and overhead cranes so that workers can slowly and safely dismantle the reactor and its building. It's designed to last a 100 years. To protect the workers building it, NSC was built away from the reactor building and rolled over top of it on rails when completed. It's the largest moving land-based structure ever built. There's a good overview of the project at th-cam.com/video/oY3fZH9VWhc/w-d-xo.html
The thing about facts is that they don't lie. but people can make mistakes interpreting the facts or have to make a decision based on a limited number of the facts. as for the truth: The truth is nothing without someone to shine a light on it.
Wonderful reaction to a series as always.
I threw the suggestion out at episode 1, but the 1st season of The Terror. (I haven't seen the 2nd season, it's a new unconnected story.) Criminally underrated, another powerhouse preformance from Jared Harris and I also somehow only just realized the actor who played Vasily was a major character in it!
I'm an egineer but anyone could notice this: it's hard to think but there was an easy way to avoid this. Rising the power back to nominal at 3200 MWh when they got the news that the test is postponed for 10 h. That way the Xenon wouldn't have built up and the test would've been completed safely, like usual. But... the disaster might've happen sometime later and who knows, maybe with effects even more devastating.
One thing when I watched this that seemed outrageous and hollywood for me was the high ranking officer going I'll drive the lead lined truck with the meter to find out the actual radiation but he did in fact do it. Wild.
Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgard were amazing
Legasov lied in Vienna, a scientist who was given incentive to not speak the truth, because the science didn't match the narrative.
Legasov spoke the truth at the Soviet trial, and him and his testimony was scraped off the record, because the science didn't match the narrative.
-"The science doesn't lie."
I don't intend to argue, but I just find it amusing.
I liked the series reaction.
The exact version is an original composition, but the closing song in this episode is the Russian/Ukrainian Orthoodox Funeral Hymn, Vechnaya Pamyat (also the Episode Title), meaning “Memory Eternal”
“Their souls shall dwell with the blessed, and their remembrance is from generation to generation.”
You just never know. When I was a kid, I saw this movie, "Captain Newman, MD," about life in a WWII Army Air Corps Psych Hospital. I remember being pretty traumatized, and resolving that I would never, ever, get myself into that work. It wasn't until YEARS later that I was able to watch that movie again. I got freaked out again when the scene of the orderlies wrestling with a patient with a knife in a running shower came on. I remembered my promise to myself, then realized with shattering clarity that that was EXACTLY what I had ended up doing after all. Mysterious ways. (shivers)
I've been to Chernobyl twice and talked to many people about it. Although most in Ukraine didn't want to watch the TV show for obvious reasons, the ones who did told me this. There's only 2 things in the TV show that is not accurate. The first was the bridge of death. That bridge is 1-3 km away from their apartments. Also, from their apartments, they had a perfect view of the reactor, so there was no reason to go out there, in April, at night, when it was still freezing(april in Ukraine is still very cold). 2nd, the naked miners, although I am sad that isn't true because it brought a bit of humor to a tragedy, unfortunately it never happened.
Because the show doesn't explain it properly, and many viewers get confused about the "graphite tips", I want to explain it a bit more
The "tip" wasn't the first thing that entered the core when the rods were lowered, they were already there. Control rods are the breaks, but they are also the accelerator. Water itself absorbs neutrons, so if the rods are pulled out the water that takes it place will still slow the reaction a bit, if not completely. So instead, the top part of the rod is boron to slow the reaction (the breaks) while the lower part is graphite to increase it (the accelerator)
This means that when the control rods are up, the graphite part is in the core already. So, why did it matter then?
Well, the reactor was going through big extremes already, and almost all the control rods were up. When they were lower simultaneously, while at the top the boron would slow it down, it caused an spike in reactivity at the bottom where the graphite was moving down through the core.
This spike cause a lot of heat and steam and pressure, and, well we won't ever know what really happened, but something broke. There are bunch of theories about exactly what, but the main point is that the control rods got stuck in that precarious just starting to lower position, with the graphite still very much in the core at the lower part
With the rods stuck, there was no chance anymore of stopping it, and as such the insane stress and pressure continued to build up rapidly until finally it blew up.
Normally a failure of cooling or controlling a reaction would lead to a "meltdown", where the material gets too hot and starts melting through the containment. But here it was so fast and there was enough water flash turned into steam to instead blow off the lid
The terrible thing is something like Chernobyl had to happen. It was a cruel, ugly, necessary evil in a way, just like when the US nuked Japan twice in 1945, we had to learn through suffering the price of lies, the price of messing with nuclear reactors and not following safety procedures. It was a dark lesson we had to learn as a species.
I hope all those that lost their lives in such a horrifically painful way found peace at the end. Legasov should be as celebrated as civil rights leaders and other important historical figures. The man was a goddamn hero.
In 2011, I stood next to that sculpture of a hand holding the reactor. It is very understated, but no less impressive for that.
Shortly after this series finished, I bought a newly written and published book called Manual for Survival; it was about Chernobyl and I learned quite a bit more about Chernobyl and what happened there. I also went to my local library and checked out a book about the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. One the eerie things about TMI is that 12 days before the accident, the movie The China Syndrome came out in theaters. There is also a very well-done three-part documentary about Three Mile Island on Netflix.
One of those things that people seem to need to learn over and over again are the cost of hubris and lies.
This tragedy could have been so easily avoided as many others before and since.
will we ever learn for good?
Thank you for this incredibly well articulated and empathetic reaction to the whole show, Angela. As others have said, a shame some things were spoiled, but glad you enjoyed the show and the montage nonetheless. And as others have said, the bench scene is phenomenal, so well acted from both of them, with such an emotional impact.
9:40 I dont think they made her look stupid. She was a victim of ignorance being put forth by the media and creating the narrative. They didn't tell her he radioactive. She thought he was just burned in the fire because that was the lie being told. I hate that anyone saw her that way. 34:45 one of the best lines of the whole series.
“Why worry about something that isn’t going to happen?” is pretty much an integral part of Russian culture. They call it “Avos’” which basically translates as “what if?”
The official number is one of those weird history technicalities, though, there's no Soviet Union to change that number today. It's like how Germany ended WWII only a couple of decades ago, because East and West Germany on their own weren't able to officially end the war, as they didn't start it.
Since can lie. When politicians set the rules of the test.
Science, hate auto complete...
18:25 There is a book called, “Midnight in Chernobyl” I highly recommend
Unfortunately this episode is the most “fictional” of the series. Legasov was not at the trial and did not give this testimony. It wasn’t until his tapes were released that the Soviet Union began to modify the reactors.
The story of Chernobyl isn’t explained or even told in current day Russia. In 2020, Russian troops drove through the red forest, kicking up radioactive dust. Workers at the plant asked them about it and the soldiers didn’t know anything about the explosion.
Again, the Chernobyl podcast is a must listen
Chernobyl was never a nuclear bomb. It’s could be called a dirty bomb due to it spreading radioactive material for miles and contaminating animals and life. But was wrong kind of fuel for it to be a nuclear bomb. Also the bridge of death is weird to me. If looked as much as I can, and there are no real records of this in old newspapers or anywhere on old Soviet or European papers or news. I did however find a story about a local man that passed away on the bridge doing some stunts. Also to anyone who may want to know, Pripyat was a closed city. Meaning if you didn’t work there or were visiting family you couldn’t visit or pass through. At the time the soviets considered all nuclear including power stations as state secrets, so no public. Also that’s why the Duga Radar was there for the KGB.
Now that it's done, a couple of things.
1. There are videos on YT about people who travel into the exclusion zone and meet up with residents who refused to leave their homes.
2. There is a company that does tours called Gamma travels.
3. Said company has recorded for Google Street View maps, up to the point where you can see the sarcophagus.
The caterpillar was great because it showed that life would, *could* continue in Chernobyl. That caterpillar is so small it had to be born after the disaster. All the radiation didn’t stop it.