Chernobyl Full Series Review: HBO’s Hard-Hitting Saga Based on a Real-Life Tragedy Is Bleak, Scary, but Ultimately, Brilliant!

Believe the hype! If someone has recommended the show to you, listen to them for once! For Chernobyl is, perhaps, the best show 2019 has to offer to you. HBO has faced a lot of criticism for the way it treated the final season of Game of Thrones by giving it a truncated number of episodes and giving prominence to scale over storytelling. With Chernobyl, the channel has managed to fight back the detractors, by bringing a show that excels in all the terrains it has to cover - premise, performances, and impact. HBO's New Series Chernobyl Beats Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones To Be the Highest Rated TV Show on IMDB.

You might know of the incident that forms the plot of this mini-series. The Chernobyl incident of 1986. During the night of April 26, 1986, an explosion happens in a nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukrainian SSR. The residents around the area are baffled by the smoke and flames coming out of the plant. But little did they know then of the horrors that will engulf them soon through the harmful radiation that their naked eyes can't see.

The administrators try to downplay the severity, and the government sends two members to study the accident - Valery Legasov (Jared Harris), the deputy director of the Kurchatov Institut, and Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgård), the Council of Ministers' deputy chairman. While Legasov realises that the accident is not as minor as people are telling him, it is only when they reach Chernobyl that the ramifications of the tragedy hit upon them in full force.

Chernobyl is all of five episodes, but each episode has a distinct approach that makes them significant from each other, but united by a tragedy that can't be contained within numbers (in fact, the official death toll of the tragedy is just 31!). The first episode plays like a horror movie that delves in atmospheric creeps. Along with the residents of Chernobyl, we try to figure out what the heck happened in the plant, and why the assistant chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) is insisting that everything is in control, when it clearly isn't. We see the first wave of firefighters trying to put down the flames, little knowing the dangers that go beyond those fires. Among them is the young Vasily Ignatenko (Adam Nagaitis), whose pregnant wife Lyudmilla (Jessie Buckley) is fearful for his return. The whole episode plays around the characters' fears, and confusion, and our exasperation of the pig-headedness of the administrators, who try to look the other side. Chernobyl may be talking about one particular incident, but why do we have this sense of deja vu?

The second episode is where the show starts transitioning from good to brilliant. We are finally shown the true magnitude of the tragedy through Legasov and Shcherbina, as they figure out what went wrong and how to prevent further tragedy. The slow realisation that dawns on them, that, by merely being in the place, they have already signed their own death sentence, is horrifying. We also get to know the selfless Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson), a nuclear physicist, who tries to help Legasov and Shcherbina with her own findings. Khomyuk, a fictional character, is the amalgamation of several physicists who had helped Legasov in uncovering the truth. As for the victims, we get a view of their plight through Lyudmilla as she searches for her husband among the wounded. Chernobyl Nuke Disaster Had Positive Impact on Environment: UN Study.

If the first episode shows the disaster, it is the third episode where we get to see the most devastating consequences of the incident. The episode is not easy to watch, as we get to see the horrifying effects had on the people who ventured close to the explosion. The scenes between Lyudmilla and her husband, who has now become an unrecognisable lump of mass whose skin and flesh can no longer be differentiated, are heartrending.

While the episode allows us to mope over these tragedies, it also allows us to celebrate the valour stories of some selfless heroes. Like those three diving volunteers who risk their lives by going into the plant and prevent a steam explosion. Or the hundreds of coal miners, who strip themselves to bare nakedness to fight the unbearable heat to excavate into the plant. Scenes like these give us hope in humanity, even as the protagonists dodge shady KGB spies and government apathy.

The fourth episode, rightly titled 'The Happiness of All Mankind', takes a more philosophical view of the tragedy. A bigger disaster may have been averted thanks to the ingenious efforts of Legasov and Shcherbina. But the real tragedy and work begin from there in the evacuation of thousands of residents from kilometres around the place.

The episode begins with a harrowing scene, where an old woman, who has survived the worst that Russia had gone through, including World War II, is forced to evacuate from her house by having a soldier kill her cow. The killing of these mute animals, who had nothing to do with the accident, make us realise what we as humans are doing to nature through the process of modernisation.

The focus of three-men exterminator team, involving a rookie Pavel (Barry Keoghan), may take the attention out of the main happenings, that continue to happen in the side. But if you look closer, their scenes are all about the slow corrosion of innocence, of the undeniable collateral damage that may never get the same importance as the human lives. Particularly affecting is the scene where they had to kill a female dog and her new litter of puppies, who are just happy to see some humans finally. Their deaths happen so that humanity could survive.

The final episode finally gets into an investigative mode going back and forth in time to find out what resulted in the accident. The court hearing session has its moments, particularly when a usually stoic Dyatlov accuses Lyudmilla and Legasov of lying, even when the testimonies of his slain co-workers are against him. It is easy for us to put the blame on him, and he is at clearly wrong here. It is only the revelation that even the government is to be blamed for using cheap materials that we understand that tragedies of such epic proportions can't be blamed on one person.

However, the moment that stands out in the episode is a quieter one. Shcherbina finally facing his mortality, and the conversation he has with Legasov where they both assure each other of their value, is brilliant. Both Skarsgard and Harris have given wonderful performances in this scene.

Watch the trailer of Chernobyl below:

The best thing about Chernobyl is that it doesn't capitalise on the tragedy or romanticise it; instead, it makes us be a part of the tragedy and feel the helplessness of the innocent victims and the trying heroes involved. The writing (Craig Mazin) is strong, and the direction (Johan Renck) ever stronger. The performances are uniformly fantastic, though I was particularly fascinated with Ritter's act as the rigid engineer. Special mention must also be given to Hildur Guðnadóttir's haunting score

There have been some complaints about why the show hasn't been in Russian (though the writings and broadcast announcements are in the local language). Making characters speak in Russian could have made Chernobyl even more authentic. But was that ever the point of the show? By replicating the 1986 disaster, aren't the makers trying to tell us that there is a bigger tragedy waiting to befall on us? Because we are too busy being blinkered in our view of things?

Final Thoughts

Chernobyl is not an easy show to watch, because it feels so real. There are scenes that are hard to stomach, but they aren't used for sensational purposes as in a Game of Thrones. The bleakness of the show is almost suffocating, but Chernobyl triumphs as a show with excellence over writing, acting and directing. Highly recommended! (You can watch the whole show on Hotstar)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 06, 2019 09:55 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).