Spoilers

“1:23:45”

“Please Remain Calm”

With the rewatches of Twin Peaks and Moonlighting finishing, the end of the Fallout first season, and the nearing of the completion of Man from Atlantis, I was ready for a new watch, whether it be a rewatch or a new show. I had made a list and one that jumped out at me was a five-episode mini-series that had aired on HBO in 2019 based on the story of the disaster that occurred at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union.

I had heard amazing things about this mini-series and so I wanted to get this into the rotation. I have to say, after watching the first two episodes, I had to really stress myself into not continuing and binging the entire series. It was that good.

About two-thirds of the way through the second episode, I was thinking that everyone that I saw in the first episode was now dead or in the process of dying, which was a dramatic thought.

Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård we meet, mostly, in the second episode, and they bring some of the best acting I have seen in a long time. The realization of what their jobs will cost them is absolutely screaming beneath their performances.

This historical recreation (which does have its share of discrepancies) is extremely stressful and intense. It had me yelling at my screen for characters to get out of there, in reference to the power plant. How the radiation affected these men was an unbelievable example of the power of nuclear energy.

Kicking the series off with a scene of Valery Legasov, played by Jared Harris, hanging himself after recording memoirs of the events of Chernobyl really started things off with a desperation that the series maintained. Legasov had said to Skarsgård’s Boris Shcherbina in episode two that they would both be dead in five years. Perhaps this was his way of taking control of his life. Or maybe, he knew he would be killed for putting his words on tape. Either way, it made for quite an impact at the beginning of this show.