An appropriate review for this tragedy's 35th anniversary.
Yes, I have returned... momentarily, at least. On another day I'll explain how things have STILL been chaotic for me during the sabbatical (including a rather unpleasant interaction with a service tech) but that rant will come at a later time. For the rest of the month I'll be using the likes of “neighbor's WiFi” and “Starbucks cafes” to post these; I'll probably only have one chance a day to look at who has liked all my reviews. Thank heavens I had this on physical media, so it could be viewed over the course of the past two nights. The purchase-made a few months ago-was a blind buy but all the lofty praise made me feel confident I would not be led astray. As the actual explosion at the infamous nuclear power plant was on the 26th back in 1986, at least this could be watched in part on that day as a tribute.
In five episodes (a little over an hour each) both the explosion and its aftermath are shown; not only are there a few lead characters that are both attempting to mitigate the catastrophic impact & investigating what happened, there are several side stories that show the impact on the average person living in the area. While rather manipulative, the subplot concerning the soldiers who have to go around and shoot the abandoned pets... it at least left an impact on the viewer. Also leaving an impact: how negatively the operators of the Chernobyl plant were presented. They were rude A-holes who refused to listen to their underlings and they played a huge role in the accident, although a Soviet cover-up of a past event also meant they had no knowledge that the final step they took would lead to disaster. It is not until the final episode that the explanation is given for what happened; it was presented in a clear fashion where you don't need to have a PhD in chemistry to comprehend the chain of events.
This miniseries was great as it had talented people in front and behind the camera present this story in an easy to follow fashion where Valery Legasov and Boris Scherbina are presented as heroes who tried their best to resolve this matter even with the true enemy of this limited series: Communism and how its bureaucracy stifles the truth from being revealed... they don't want any information getting out that makes them look bad to the rest of the world, right? From what I understand, most of the information presented here was the truth and is not a fabrication. You hate a few of the characters and I'd accept that they were so repugnant if IRL this was how they behaved.
Unfortunately... that has been called into question and furthermore, not everything presented concerning radiation and its impact on humans was true. Let's just say that some elements concerning Jessie Buckley's subplot was poppycock. A shame as they really should have done the research there; Emily Watson's role of a composite character is fine with me as that is typical in fictionalized versions of real life events for the sake of clarity for the audience's benefit... them demonizing some people who may not have been so awful and other fabrications which are harder to justify is why this does not get the full 5 stars. Be that as it may, Chernobyl is still a miniseries worth watching, especially if you are a history nerd like myself and/or wish to see great performances from the like of Watson, Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgard. Just note that at times it does show the accurate effects of radiation and those moments are quite gruesome. A huge compliment is that once I am able to, research will be done personally so I can learn even more about this tragedy.
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