Chernobyl - TV Series Review

Chernobyl - DLLorenzo TV Series Review

So after hearing that this Historical drama TV mini series was gathering rave reviews and was actually highly regarded on line by viewers, even being rated highly on popular review sites me and my girlfriend decided to check out this new series by HBO and Sky UK that depicted the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster of April 1986 and the unprecedented clean up efforts that followed.


Chernobyl dramatizes the story of the April 1986 nuclear plant disaster which occurred in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Soviet Union), telling the stories of the people who caused the disaster and those who responded to it. The series depicts some of the lesser known stories of the disaster, including the efforts of the firefighters who were the first responders on the scene, volunteers Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov, and Boris Baranov, and teams of miners tasked with digging a critical tunnel.
The miniseries is based in large part on the recollections of Pripyat locals, as told by Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich in her book Voices from Chernobyl.


The issue of long-term effects of the Chernobyl disaster on civilians is very controversial. The number of people whose lives were affected by the disaster is enormous. Over 300,000 people were resettled because of the disaster; millions lived and continue to live in the contaminated area. On the other hand, most of those affected received relatively low doses of radiation; there is little evidence of increased mortality, cancers or birth defects among them; and when such evidence is present, existence of a causal link to radioactive contamination is uncertain

DLLorenzo Review 5/5


So before this series launched, everyone knew about the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster, from media, social media, YouTube videos of people entering the quarantine area, Chernobyl appearing in popular culture such as Modern Warfare, the game series and also appearing in movies and books.


I didn't know how it happened and what happened surrounding the Nuclear disaster. Covered up by the former Soviet Union, testing nuclear reactors with cheap equipment on without proper training and running the test on a night shift who had never done the procedure before was an accident waiting to happen. The disaster brought a reform in Russia and reformed the use of nuclear technology around the world.


The series addresses what happened during those climatic moments as the engineers tried in vain to contain the disaster and those people who handled the matter to try and resolve it.


It is an astounding breath-taking dramatization TV series depicting the Soviet Union at that time, the cast of actors that played the main  characters were very realistically portrayed. Horrific images of burned bodies following intense radiation, communities and people's lives uprooted overnight with the are being made an exclusion zone to protect  others from radioactive contamination and these people still cannot return  to their homes to this day.


There were the thousands of people killed both immediately and over time as a result of what they now call Acute Radiation Syndrome. 

However the disaster also unveiled the astonishing heroism of those many people who were aware that they were about to give their life to save others. Hundreds of miners and soldiers who worked around the clock trying to avert disaster by removing the graphite debris that was above the reactor core – jobs which meant certain death.  Many firemen who tried desperately to contain the fire after the explosion who were not aware of impending death. There was also the heroism of those in high ranking positions,  like Legasov, a senior nuclear physicist, who recognized the flaws in the system design and put his neck on the line by speaking out in court years later. Thanks to his heroism and work the design flaw was eradicated not only in other Soviet Union reactors  but in other countries that used this design.

The real horror was in the dark details depicted in this series. For example, in the way that thousands of people were recruited in the aftermath of this disaster to carry out duties such as, shooting the thousands of dogs and pets left in the exclusion zone. This is so they could never venture outside with their contaminated bodies. This was heart-breaking. I won’t go into anymore gory details here. For as difficult was it to watch, it needs to be understood, to educate, in helping to make sure that we never allow tragedies like this to happen again.