No, I haven't seen any good Russian movie or series in the past 10 years. I don't have any hope that this one will be good.

It is possible to justify anything this this statement. Take any man from a good family. Then, because he exists - it means that his mother had sex with his father. And then make a movie when she had sex with group of hobos. Or in animal porn. And when people say "Hey, she never did that!" answer is "But she had sex because you exist and our movie is just Artistic VISION of how she did that".

Yes, but you know what is most funny to me? In these series there is no black soldiers which was there in the real events. :) In modern western society this is serious mistake! XD

You seem to equate lying with creative freedom used to add dramatic effect. I can't help you with that. I don't know why you watched an American made drama series about a Russian event, instead of a Russian made documentary about a Russian event. It would be like complaining that the Martian is a LIE, because the atmospheric pressure on Mars doesn't allow storms as powerful, as the one depicted in the film. If you nitpick, you can find plenty of inaccuracies in the Martian, but they are all/most explained as "creative freedom used to add dramatic effect"

I can only state my impression of the series, which I found to be one of the best dramatic series ever produced. At no point did I find anybody a caricature or incompetent. Even Dyatlov, while I may have hated him as a human being, I would personally categorize as a ruthless person blinded by his own ambition. Everybody, from the two leads, all the army personnel, Mikhail Gorbachev, even the KGB Chairman were managing an impossible situation, and in the end they averted a apocalyptic catastrophe.

I especially loved the character of Colonel/General Pikalov who chose to personally sacrifice himself than the soldiers below him, when it came to driving the truck which got them the radiation reading.

Again I didn't find this as demeaning to the soldiers. These where people put in under horrible stress, well aware that the mission will be the death of them. They were dealing with their situation to the best of their abilities, while accomplishing their assignment. The sequence wasn't meant to show the Soviet army as a bunch of drunks.

1. So it's creepy that RUSSIANS were given VODKA(presumably to calm down and relax)?

2. How do you know? Or do you believe that no russian would or could ever do those things because others told you so? ALL people are susceptible to human failings including drunkenness...and that includes anyone living in russia at the time.

3. They didn't if they showed it at the end....they likely did the dying bit for the show and then gave the true version agt the end to allow them to be creative and still show the truth at some point.

4. This is not to say NO ONE will ever act out of character and do dumb/weird things IRL....it can and does happen all the time.

5. I have nothing to add to this bit.

Now you're just being silly & making exaggerated nonsensical examples to make a point......much of that stuff wouldn't be allowed on tv/etc due to moral standards in such programming or if it slandered someone.

To be honest it likely won't do any good(this reply).....the chap seems to be set on believing the "evil westerners and their lies" stereotype.

Excellent production quality and the acting was so good that it took me a while to notice the actors had kept their british accents (a smart decision). Short and sweet, five episodes only. Emotional, disturbing and nostalgic (for me, anyhow). It's just a television series "loosely" based on a historical event. I was never under the impression that it was meant to be a documentary, hence some of the fictitious characters, like the fireman's wife and that female scientist protagonist (whose name escapes me right now). Touching, entertaining, thought-provoking and frightening. I loved it! :)

For those interested, the producers and the director discussed the show in detail in their own podcast. They talk about lots of stuff that people may have missed.

Podcast to Episode 1

Podcast to Episode 2

Podcast to Episode 3

Podcast to Episode 4

Podcast to Episode 5

I got the chance to watch it when it came out every week and it grabbed me, the sense of fear and acting is good. I did hear some complain about the actors but tbh, I did not mind it. overall it was a solid story and was point on with the documentaries I watched over the years. Gonna pick up the blu-ray set when it's released to go in my collection.

Chernobyl is a very good series- fantastically written, acted and directed with a pervasive sense of dread that matches any horror series- but, and it's a big but, a lot of people think it's a documentary and it really really isn't. It's a drama set in a historical event. The historical errors in the show are actually mostly deliberate changes made to up that drama. They're not always 'anti soviet' though, for example the heroic 'volunteers' for shutting off the water in the suicide mission survived as noted earlier in the thread instead of dying as implied in the show (up to the epilogue at least)- but they were also not volunteers. They were picked, alphabetically, from a list rather than volunteering hence their names all starting with 'A' or 'B'; but them volunteering made a better scene for TV than Legasov or Scherbina reading the first three names from the duty roster. Some of the more random errors are also due to Mazin's biggest source Medvedev (note, not the current Russian PM Medvedev) who while the best known source is also himself as much a dramatist as a documenter. IIRC he's where the mythical 'Bridge of Death' came from, and it's pretty definite it's a myth.

It's also extremely harsh on Dyatlov who ended up with most of the flaws that the top administrators (Fomin and Bryukanov (sp)) actually had. While his dialogue is great and maximum meme material, and he's extremely good as a villain in the show he actually accepted what had happened almost instantly and did a number of very brave things like direct the fire fighters in real life. But, you cannot have show Dyatlov doing that sort of thing, because he's the villain of the show.

Probably the worst inaccuracy is not even from the series directly though. That would be the Twitterati picking up a Russian drama as being the Russian 'answer' or response to the Chernobyl series. That drama has been in production since 2014, is labelled a drama and is no more a response to the Chernobyl series than... Rocky 3 was a response to 2016 Russian election meddling.

(The fireman's wife Lyudmilla Ignatenko (iirc) is 100% real though)

I know what Andrey is saying about the vodka, it was a bit weird, was almost expecting a "This Episode Brought To You by Absolut Vodka" lol.

Also I didn't really understand the whole drama in the final episode about the fault in the RBMK reactors, the show seems to imply that the Soviet authorities knew about the fault but didn't want to repair it because somehow admitting that the reactors were faulty was the same as admitting that the Soviet nuclear industry wasn't the best in the world? Come on. I doubt that they were ruthless enough to risk the lives of millions of people as well as vast amounts of territory that would be contaminated by another meltdown, the USSR govt wasn't insane.. Also, they could easily repair the reactor faults in secrecy without admitting anything publicly. Also, this was the Cold War, of course everything relating to nuclear research would be guarded by the KGB. It seemed to me to be just a typical Western liberal perspective being inserted into the show.

If they'd fixed the flaws the explosion would not have happened and the proximal cause was the fail safe actually behaving in the exact reverse of the way it 'should', albeit briefly, so it's a fair inherent criticism from the show.

In terms of why they didn't fix the flaws it was probably in part due to bureaucratic inertia/ potential embarrassment of important officials but it also was not a dangerous flaw except in circumstances where normal operating procedures were ignored or suspended. The show does a pretty good job of showing exactly how many different things had to be done wrong to get even that flawed reactor to explode as it did. But, while there was certainly operator irresponsibility it was inherently and unnecessarily dangerous as a design; they weren't deliberately trying to blow it up and it would not have happened with the fix(es).

The soviet bureaucracy angle/ "what is the price of lies?" stuff should really be taken as [anywhere] bureaucracy though. There are plenty of examples of similar regulatory capture, incompetence or stupidity elsewhere as well.

(The best recent example is probably the Boeing 737 MAX fiasco. Inherently bad design which will always pitch the plane up, not properly tested yet certified and no requirement for proper pilot training because it was too expensive, essential safety features sold as optional paid extras. When a single sensor malfunctions the computer will try and stop the plane's natural pitch up by pitching down... and ultimately fly into the ground. With the crew unsure which instruments are working there's too much confusion and too little time to recover if the recovery procedure even works (which apparently it didn't in the 2nd crash at least). It's a fundamentally unsafe design approved because it was a Boeing 737, and it's the fault of just about every admin and management person involved in Boeing and the regulatory authorities)

The same country's leadership also let the Kursk crew sit on the bottom on the ocean/sea/etc for how long while denying allowing foreign aid/help for how long...so yeah I could see it being a bit possible....just my two cents.

Some good info...thanks for all that.

why the heck you have to discuss Chornobyl in gaming forums? Vodka? good fantasy story? we have lost relatives to this catastrophe, 1 out of 20 Ukrainians diagnosed with cancer and half of these people by statistics gonna die. every Ukrainian feels pain because that's what Chornobyl gave us - pain and death.

I'll answer to OP question: I never watched these series and I won't watch it. Because I feel pain to even think about it. I have lost father to Chornobyl and I don't need to watch documentaries to know what happened back then. Thanks for bringing memories about my father and why he died so early.

Why you bring it to gaming forums?

*Moded, please be polite when posting.

First off, I get you are hurting from personal experience but that is no reason to slam a good thread just because of such.

No one is mocking anyone who died/was hurt or affected by such, and all are just talking about the tv series, which btw seems to be decently respectful of those who suffered or died as well.

Before getting upset or calling people/threads stupid or mallicious you should first see if anyone is acting in such a way first?

why it belongs to GAMING forums? this is biggest catastrophe in the history that involved radiation and happened (relatively) recently. this is not TV, this is real, you're talking about REAL thing that affected/ruined lives of millions of people in Eastern Europe and Baltics. you see only TV screen and actors (whom you discuss like it ever matters) and this is TV show for you while it is REAL for me and millions of other people. now I ask you again, why you have to discuss biggest catastrophe with most casualties on gaming forums where people supposed to have fun?

This is the general discussion forum, open to all topics that are not disallowed by the forum rules. If you see a sensitive subject that you're not comfortable with, you're quite welcome to ignore the thread, instead of reading it through and stressing yourself out. The contents of this thread was well indicated by its title.

While I understand your pain, if merely seeing the word Chernobyl triggers this strong a reaction, you should find a way to address that issue. Venting here will probably not help.