
HBO's Chernobyl may yet become the highest rated TV Show ever - KyleOS
https://kyso.io/KyleOS/imdb
======
rdtsc
It is really a great show.

We lived close enough to Chernobyl that if the winds blew a different way we
would have been seriously affected by it. And I remember when it happened. The
announcement on evening news
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuWIIiTLbFM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuWIIiTLbFM)).
My dad saying "if that's what they admit to on the news, the situation is many
times worse" and how we should all be very worried.

Then the refugees coming to our city, and how the locals had this irrational
fear and hate toward them, thinking they were "radioactive" or brought "bad
luck". The promises of new apartments for the liquidators, and how some, of
course, never lived long enough to enjoy them.

Anyway, in the show, I think, they went above and beyond to make it authentic.
Anything from the smallest details like the decor, clothes, the buildings, the
things they say, the mannerisms, all of that. The lack of "Russian" accents, a
common criticism I heard, never bothered me. Even the fictitious character of
Ulana Khomyuk was very representative of what a woman scientist might have
looked or behaved like. She reminded me of my chemistry teacher from high
school.

~~~
sam_lowry_
Yeah, the winds blew in our direction. Shortly after, my family moved to
Minsk,

Later on, I had military training in radiation protection in post-Chernobyl
Belarus, read the transcripts of Legasov's tapes and IAEA reports on
Chernobyl.

Chernobyl shadowed my life, but things turned out to be mostly OK.

Back to the mini-series, even the faithful repoduction of the epoch is
sometimes dumb. Notice the crystal clock on Gorbatchev's table. I had one like
that at home, but I am pretty sure that clock would not sit on Gorbatchev's
table. It's something people had at home, not in institutions.

The sequence of events is roughly similar to what actually happened, but
content is unnecessarily worse than the reality. For instance, the three
divers that went through radiactive waters survied, one died many years later
of a heart attack, one is retired and the third one is a director at the
Energy and Coal Mining Ministry of Ukraine.

~~~
mvid
Did you watch the end of the show? They explicitly mention that even though
legends said the divers died of radiation, they didn’t, and two are still
alive

------
untog
*highest IMDB rated

IMDB ratings are of pretty dubious quality. They also fall victim to a recency
bias - looking at their Top 250 list, Avengers Endgame is currently listed as
the number nine best film ever made, which... come on.

~~~
ssully
Incredibly dubious. I have found user ratings for things that draw
'passionate' fan bases (movies, video games, etc) to be nearly useless over
the last 3 to 5 years. Review bombings are becoming all too common over issues
that more often then not have nothing to do with the actual product.

Luckily, I haven't really seen this with books yet (at least on Goodreads),
but I am sure it has just as much potential to be hit in a similar way.

~~~
ameister14
Goodreads ratings are massively dubious to the point of almost uselessness,
frankly.

~~~
ssully
Luckily I haven't had a bad experience yet. I've found some reviews to be a
little more positive then I would expect, but I would take people being overly
generous then the review cesspools I have stumbled upon on Steam or
IMBD/Rotten Tomatoes.

~~~
ameister14
I've seen a pretty good amount of brigading on Goodreads, especially on less
known books

------
kmnc
The show is great, and it reaching this level of notoriety is amazing. Yet, it
just goes to show you how everything is marketing and timing. If this show
isn't on HBO, and isn't following the exit of Game of Thrones does it even get
noticed? For example, The Terror, which in my opinion is just as good as this
show (and features a better performance by the same actor in Chernobyl) was
not only ignored by viewers but by critics alike. TV Critics are, in my
opinion, completely useless and only ever write articles about popular shows.
Best of lists you usually see at the end of the year make me wonder if these
people even watch the shows.

~~~
untog
> If this show isn't on HBO, and isn't following the exit of Game of Thrones
> does it even get noticed?

Well, yes, because the article notes that it's most popular in Ireland. It was
a co-production with a British company, so over there it has no connection to
HBO at all.

> TV Critics are, in my opinion, completely useless and only ever write
> articles about popular shows.

Maybe TV critics giving positive reviews to a show helps make it popular?

~~~
arethuza
On Sky here in the UK it does say that it is a co-production with HBO
Miniseries.

------
Kutta
As a mid-level Chernobyl geek, I found this show generally underwhelming. I
admit it may hold much more interest for those who are not yet familiar with
the story. But I must say, there are so many things which could have been done
spectacularly, and instead we got a very pedestrian TV affair, with ample use
of disaster movie and horror movie cliches and tropes, and basic bitch
cinematography. Chernobyl should deserve a more flavorful adaptation if
anything does. I also hate the gray-blue color grading, it would have been far
more interesting to portray Pripyat as the rather vivid and young city which
it was, with warmer color tones and more humane elements, instead of
defaulting to dumb USSR cliches.

~~~
effie
Agreed on the colors, the scenes shown focused a little but too much on the
dark and grim, especially when you compare to the real footage and photographs
of Pripyat from the time. It was one of the most modern and likeable cities
back then. They could have shown at least few minutes of normal life just
before the disaster.

~~~
effie
Just saw the final part, they do show a little of normal life in the first
minutes, props to the authors. They did such a great job with so many aspects,
definitely a work of heart for many of them.

------
ds
Its good, but I think its easier to be good for 6 episodes than it is for
multiple seasons. Even if you disregard that- Is it better than Band of
Brothers?

~~~
colmvp
Agreed. I really liked Chernobyl but I honestly thought Breaking Bad and the
first four seasons of Game of Thrones were superior, in no small part because
of the high excellence that’s extremely difficult to maintain beyond a few
episodes. It’s also much harder to make character development feel earned in
only a few episodes.

------
kitten_smuggler
Loved the show but felt that it was a bit heavy on the fear-mongering.

EDIT* What I mean by this is that the facts were dramatized for effect, at a
time when we need to change societal opinions on nuclear more than ever.

~~~
smacktoward
I found this interview with the showrunner to be thought-provoking in that
regard: [https://slate.com/culture/2019/06/chernobyl-finale-hbo-
minis...](https://slate.com/culture/2019/06/chernobyl-finale-hbo-miniseries-
craig-mazin-interview.html)

 _> For a million reasons, this was not an anti-nuclear polemic. It’s
anti­–Soviet government, and it is anti-lie, and it is pro–human being. But
anyone who thinks the point of this is that nuclear power is bad, is just,
they’ve just missed it._

~~~
izzydata
Thank you for that quote. I was going to try and write something along those
lines, but that seems like a better summary. Anti-nuclear energy simply wasn't
part of the narrative. It only seems like that because the events of Chernobyl
really happened.

They pointed out a few times that the only reason the Chernobyl catastrophe
happened was because of all the corners that were cut and the lies that were
told. Other nations with Nuclear programs weren't likely to have the same
problem because they were more open.

~~~
y_molodtsov
Well, it’s not like there weren’t other nuclear disasters.

~~~
izzydata
That's true. I don't know what it would have taken to prevent the Fukushima
disaster.

------
kshacker
It is a backlash against Game of Thrones which ended so hated that anything
better got upvoted I guess.

------
ddavis
I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I think w.r.t. HBO miniseries Band of Brothers
is better.

~~~
smacktoward
Eh, I'm not sure _Band of Brothers_ holds up as well as you might think. It's
really strong in episodes 2 through 6, where the core characters are all
together from Normandy to Market Garden to Bastogne. But after that those core
characters disperse, either by getting promoted or becoming casualties, and
then from there the series just kind of fizzles out; for better or worse, in
those early episodes Winters is the de facto protagonist, and once he departs
the show never really manages to find another one.

The later sequel _The Pacific_ suffered from the same problem of not having a
stable, interesting point-of-view character for the audience to attach
themselves to, only unlike _Band_ which starts with one and then discards him
_The Pacific_ lacks one throughout.

~~~
antisthenes
Really? I thought the last episodes were some of the strongest. They had to
highlight the end of the war and the reasons for fighting it.

One of the underlying points of the series was that all of them are core
characters. Looking for protagonists in war is glorifying it.

------
lousken
Best episode still holds Attack on titan though. [0]
[https://www.imdb.com/search/title?title_type=tv_episode&num_...](https://www.imdb.com/search/title?title_type=tv_episode&num_votes=1000,&sort=user_rating,desc)
.

Also imdb doesn't really hold reliable statistics as top rated shows are often
review bombed

------
KyleOS
Credit to Siddharth Shukla - used his script to get the IMDB ratings
([https://github.com/sid8491/imdb-tv-shows-
rating](https://github.com/sid8491/imdb-tv-shows-rating)).

------
NuSkooler
Really the only thing I think could have better is had it been in Russian. I
mostly got used to it, but it would have felt better listening to Russian and
reading subtitles (IMO).

------
rossdavidh
Did anyone else find themselves wondering, "WTF does Paraguay care about
Chernobyl so much more than most of Europe?"

Disclaimer: I miss the point a lot.

------
thedudeabides5
This show is so good, and parrallels to China are interesting.

------
LargoLasskhyfv
I've been underwhelmed by this. Because they missed the opportunity to
incorporate

[https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurea-different-
view...](https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurea-different-view-on-
chernobyl/)

There is endless rambling about the failure of the apparatchiks to communicate
the shortcomings of the scram system for political, economical and technical
reasons, which culminates in stating at the end that the emergency stop can
change to an ignition switch for a bomb under special circumstances.

"Weil nicht sein kann was nicht sein darf!"

"And he comes to the conclusion: His mishap was an illusion, for, he reasons
pointedly, that which must not, can not be!" (cited from
[https://www.proz.com/kudoz/german-to-english/business-
commer...](https://www.proz.com/kudoz/german-to-english/business-commerce-
general/1212105-weil-nicht-sein-kann-was-nicht-sein-darf.html#2893352) )

Yet, regarding the different view of Konstantin Checherov they are making the
same error.

Guilty of falsifying history as usual.

Mockumentary...

~~~
erentz
I can't find anything else backing up Konstantin Checherov's claims. It seems
like this is very much just his opinion, and they don't seem to add up:
[https://sputniknews.com/analysis/2006053048810128/](https://sputniknews.com/analysis/2006053048810128/)

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
That is from 2006. I remember a documentary in german TV from ZDF - Der
Millionensarg. Therein this person

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Pflugbeil](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Pflugbeil)

walks with him through the ruin several times, and compares several videos
with the floor plan, together with other people, and they all come to the
conclusion that the official story makes no sense, for several reasons.

Anyways, wasn't the conclusion of the last episode that it was all about
saving face? Who is to say it would be any different now? Especially if there
are BILLIONS to have? Hm?

