Chernobyl

HBO Miniseries Review: “Chernobyl”. Users rated it 95%. Rated: TV-MA with five 1hr episodes an IMDb of 9.7/10. 

The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986, in the No. 4 nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat, in the north of the Ukrainian SSR, near the Byelorussian SSR border.  The accident occurred during a late-night safety test simulating a power outage, during which both emergency safety and power-regulating systems were intentionally disabled.  A combination of inherent flaws in the RBMK reactor design and operators arranging the core in a manner contrary to the checklist for the test resulted in uncontrolled reaction conditions. Superheated water was instantly turned into steam, causing a destructive steam explosion and a subsequent open-air graphite fire.

I assure you that Chernobyl is scarier than most horror movies. It’s a dramatization of actual, real-life horror experienced by thousands of people on that fateful April 1986 morning and the years that followed. This disaster has haunted the nation, Europe, and the rest of mankind more than three decades later. And that creeping dread permeates the whole show. It's difficult to watch. But it certainly makes it a must-watch.

This show however takes the cake in atmosphere, soundtrack, setting, pacing, acting and cinematography. That is not all though...there has rarely been a show that has filled me with a simultaneous sense of sorrow, horror and menace throughout its duration. Not only is this due to the disaster and the horrific impact it had on people but also to the nauseating bureaucracy of the Soviet Union. A state where people had been conditioned to stoically sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

This really hit home with me considering my entire career was spent in the Electric Utility Industry. Watching this hooked me from the very 1st episode.

For those of you that have access to HBO and On-Demand don’t miss this opportunity to see this miniseries. I’m sure that it will show up on other streaming services in the very near future.