Chernobyl (miniseries)

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Chernobyl

Historical drama
Genre
Tragedy[1]
Created by Craig Mazin
Written by Craig Mazin
Directed by Johan Renck
Starring  Jared Harris
 Stellan Skarsgård
 Paul Ritter
 Jessie Buckley
 Adam Nagaitis
 Con O'Neill
 Adrian Rawlins
 Sam Troughton
 Robert Emms
 Emily Watson
 David Dencik
 Mark Lewis Jones
  Alan Williams
 Alex Ferns
 Ralph Ineson
 Barry Keoghan
 Fares Fares
 Michael McElhatton

Composer(s) Hildur Guðnadóttir

 United States
Country of origin  United Kingdom

Original language(s) English

No. of episodes 5 (list of episodes)
Production
 Craig Mazin
 Carolyn Strauss
 Jane Featherstone
Executive producer(s)
 Johan Renck
 Chris Fry

Producer(s) Sanne Wohlenberg

 Lithuania
Production location(s)  Ukraine

Cinematography Jakob Ihre

 Jinx Godfrey
Editor(s)  Simon Smith

Camera setup Single-camera

Running time 60–72 minutes
 HBO
 Sky UK
 Sister Pictures
Production company(s)
 The Mighty Mint
 Word Games

Distributor HBO International

Release
 HBO (US)
Original network  Sky Atlantic (UK)

Picture format UHDTV 2160p

 May 6 –
Original release
June 3, 2019
External links
Website
Production website

Chernobyl is a 2019 historical drama television miniseries produced by HBO and Sky UK.
Created and written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck, the series revolves around the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986 and the cleanup efforts that followed. It features an
ensemble cast led by Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, and Emily Watson.

The five-part series premiered in the United States on May 6, 2019, and concurrently in the
United Kingdom on May 7, to critical acclaim. At the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, it received
nineteen nominations and won for Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Directing, and
Outstanding Writing, while Harris, Skarsgård, and Watson received acting nominations. At the
77th Golden Globe Awards, the series won for Best Miniseries or Television Film and Skarsgård
won for Best Supporting Performance in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film.[2][3]

Contents
 1 Premise
 2 Cast
o 2.1 Main
o 2.2 Recurring
o 2.3 Guest
 3 Episodes
 4 Production
o 4.1 Development and writing
o 4.2 Casting
o 4.3 Filming
o 4.4 Music
 5 Historical discrepancies
 6 Reception
o 6.1 Critical response
 6.1.1 Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian response
o 6.2 US ratings
o 6.3 Awards and nominations
 7 See also
 8 References
 9 External links
Premise
Chernobyl dramatizes the story of the April 1986 nuclear plant disaster which occurred in the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, telling the stories of the people who caused
the disaster and those who responded to it.[4] The series depicts some of the lesser-known stories
of the disaster, including the efforts of the firefighters who were the first responders on the scene,
volunteers, and teams of miners tasked with digging a critical tunnel under Reactor 4.

The miniseries is based in large part on the recollections of Pripyat locals, as told by Belarusian
Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich in her book Voices from Chernobyl.[5]

Cast
Main

 Jared Harris as Valery Legasov, the deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute brought in
to aid cleanup efforts.
 Stellan Skarsgård as Boris Shcherbina, a Council of Ministers' deputy chairman.
 Emily Watson as Ulana Khomyuk, a nuclear physicist from Minsk. Khomyuk is a
fictional composite character, who is based on the many scientists who investigated the
accident.[6]
 Paul Ritter as Anatoly Dyatlov, the deputy chief engineer at the Chernobyl Nuclear
Power Plant.
 Jessie Buckley as Lyudmilla Ignatenko, the wife of Vasily Ignatenko.
 Adam Nagaitis as Vasily Ignatenko, a Pripyat firefighter and first responder to the
Chernobyl fire.
 Con O'Neill as Viktor Bryukhanov, the manager of Chernobyl.
 Adrian Rawlins as Nikolai Fomin [uk], the chief engineer at Chernobyl.
 Sam Troughton as Aleksandr Akimov, the night shift supervisor at Chernobyl.
 Robert Emms as Leonid Toptunov, the senior engineer at Chernobyl.
 David Dencik as Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union.
 Mark Lewis Jones as Vladimir Pikalov, the commander of the Soviet chemical forces.
 Alan Williams as Charkov, the KGB's first deputy chairman.[7]
 Alex Ferns as Andrei Glukhov, the mining crew chief.
 Ralph Ineson as Nikolai Tarakanov, the chief supervisor of the cleanup operation.
 Barry Keoghan as Pavel Gremov, a civilian liquidator draftee.[8]
 Fares Fares as Bacho, a Georgian soldier and Soviet–Afghan War veteran who trains
Pavel.
 Michael McElhatton as Andrei Stepashin, the prosecutor for the trial of Dyatlov,
Bryukhanov, and Fomin.

Recurring
  Adam Lundgren as Vyacheslav Brazhnik, the senior turbine operator at Chernobyl.
 Karl Davies as Viktor Proskuryakov, a senior reactor control engineer trainee at
Chernobyl.
 Donald Sumpter as Zharkov, a Pripyat executive committee member.
 Billy Postlethwaite as Boris Stolyarchuk, the senior unit #4 control engineer at
Chernobyl.
 Joshua Leese as Igor Kirschenbaum, a senior turbine control engineer at Chernobyl.
 Nadia Clifford as Svetlana Zinchenko, a doctor treating Vasily Ignatenko and others with
radiation sickness.
 Jamie Sives as Anatoly Sitnikov, the deputy chief operational engineer at Chernobyl sent
to inspect the exploded core.
 Baltasar Breki Samper as Alexei Ananenko [uk], one of the volunteers who drained water
in Chernobyl's basement to prevent an explosion.
 Philip Barantini as Valeri Bezpalov [uk], one of the volunteers who drained water in
Chernobyl's basement to prevent an explosion.
 Oscar Giese as Boris Baranov [uk], one of the volunteers who drained water in
Chernobyl's basement to prevent an explosion.
 Douggie McMeekin as Aleksandr Yuvchenko, a senior engineer-mechanic on duty the
night of the explosion.

Guest

 Natasha Radski as Russian news reader.

 Jay Simpson as Valeriy Perevozchenko, the foreman in the reactor section.
 Michael Colgan as Mikhail Shchadov [ru], Soviet Minister of Coal Industry.
 James Cosmo as a miner.
 Hilton McRae as Milan Kadnikov, the judge presiding over the trial of Dyatlov,
Bryukhanov, and Fomin.
 Kieran O'Brien as Valery Khodemchuk, the night shift main circulating pump operator at
Chernobyl.
 Alexej Manvelov as Garo, an Armenian soldier who accompanies Bacho and Pavel.

Episodes
US UK
Original air date
No. Title Directed by Written by viewers viewers
(EDT) [a]
(millions) (millions)
Craig
1 "1:23:45" Johan Renck May 6, 2019 0.756[10] 0.861[11]
Mazin
On the second anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Valery Legasov, chief of the commission
investigating it, records tapes blaming engineer Anatoly Dyatlov and other superiors for the
incident, before hiding the tapes and hanging himself (his death occurs the day after the second
anniversary in real-life).[9] Two years earlier in Pripyat, firefighter Vasily Ignatenko's pregnant
wife Lyudmilla witnesses Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploding (at
01:23:45 a.m.). At Reactor 4's control room, Dyatlov dismisses evidence that their reactor core
has exploded. He calls in firefighters and workers, and futilely orders subordinates to manually
lower control rods and restore cooling before leaving his post. Multiple plant workers and
firefighters, including Vasily, subsequently suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Plant
Director Bryukhanov, Chief Engineer Fomin and Dyatlov conclude that a hydrogen explosion
caused leakage of contaminated vessel water, and the Pripyat Executive Committee elects to
downplay the incident and blocks evacuation. Deputy chief operational engineer Sitnikov reports
seeing nuclear graphite on the ground and the others reject this. As Dyatlov succumbs to ARS,
they force Sitnikov to the roof to make a visual inspection, where he receives a lethal dose of
radiation. Legasov is informed of an under control accident at Chernobyl and ordered to provide
technical advice to the committee managing the response.
"Please Remain Craig
2 Johan Renck May 13, 2019 1.004[12] 0.891[11]
Calm" Mazin
Seven hours after the explosion, Ulana Khomyuk detects a spike in radiation levels in Minsk.
When her concerns are dismissed by local authorities, she sets out for Chernobyl, the likely
source. At Pripyat's overloaded hospital, Lyudmilla finds that Vasily and the other ARS patients
have been evacuated to Moscow. In Moscow, Legasov explains to Mikhail Gorbachev that the
situation is more serious than reported and is sent to Chernobyl with a skeptical Boris
Shcherbina. From a helicopter, Legasov points out graphite debris and a blue glow from ionizing
radiation, indicating the core is exposed. Shcherbina confronts Bryukhanov and Fomin, who
accuse Legasov of misinformation, but General Pikalov has high-range dosimeter readings that
prove Legasov is correct. Legasov instructs the military to suppress the fire with sand and boron
as an initial step but with risks of its own. As news of the incident spreads, Pripyat is finally
evacuated. Upon arrival, Khomyuk warns Legasov and Shcherbina that a destructive steam
explosion will occur if the molten core establishes contact with water in the flooded basement. A
lethal mission to drain the water is authorized and plant workers Ananenko, Bezpalov, and
Baranov volunteer.
"Open Wide, O Craig
3 Johan Renck May 20, 2019 1.063[13] 1.100[11]
Earth" Mazin
The basement is successfully drained, but a nuclear meltdown has begun, threatening to
contaminate the groundwater. Shcherbina and Legasov report to Gorbachev that a heat
exchanger is needed under the plant, for which Mikhail Shchadov recruits from Tula coal
miners, led by Glukhov, to excavate a tunnel in extremely adverse conditions. Shcherbina warns
Legasov that they are under KGB surveillance. Legasov sends Khomyuk to a Moscow hospital,
where she finds Dyatlov uncooperative but learns from dying Toptunov and Akimov that the
reactor exploded after Akimov initiated an emergency shutdown, a scenario thought impossible.
Bribing her way into the hospital and lying about her pregnancy, Lyudmilla is allowed to visit
Vasily, witnessing the harrowing deterioration of his health and disobeys orders by staying with
her husband longer than instructed. During Khomyuk's visit to the hospital, she witnesses Vasily
touching Lyudmilla. Realizing that Lyudmilla is pregnant, Khomyuk threatens to report
everything to the committee and is arrested by KGB agents. She is imprisoned, but Legasov
arranges her release. As Shcherbina and Legasov report to the Central Executive Committee
their decontamination plans requiring the mass mobilization of liquidators, Lyudmilla stands
among relatives of other deceased ARS victims as Vasily's body, sealed in a zinc casket, is
buried in concrete at a mass grave.
 "The Happiness of Craig
4 Johan Renck May 27, 2019 1.193[14] 1.311[11]
All Mankind" Mazin
Residents are evacuated from the wider Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and decontamination
operations are underway. Civilian draftee Pavel is paired with Soviet–Afghan War veteran
Bacho to patrol the Zone to shoot and dispose of abandoned animals due to radioactive
contamination. Chernobyl liquidator commander General Nikolai Tarakanov deploys Lunokhod
programme rovers to clear the plant's roof for a shelter. After a West German police robot almost
instantly fails on the most irradiated level, Tarakanov is forced to cycle 3,828 liquidators to clear
it by hand, allowed only 90 seconds each, once. Khomyuk investigates the Moscow archives and
confronts a recovering Dyatlov, who knows the government is not interested in the truth.
Meeting away from KGB bugs, Shcherbina and Legasov inform Khomyuk they must testify as
experts in the trial of Dyatlov, Bryukhanov, and Fomin, and Legasov will address the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Khomyuk reveals an article about an identical
incident at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant in 1975, suppressed by the KGB, and tells them
Lyudmilla gave birth to a girl who soon died from radiation poisoning. Khomyuk urges Legasov
to tell the IAEA the complete truth, while Shcherbina urges caution to avoid government
retaliation.
Craig
5 "Vichnaya Pamyat"[b] Johan Renck June 3, 2019 1.089[15] 2.112[11]
Mazin
Following Legasov's testimony to the IAEA in Vienna, in which he lies, Dyatlov, Bryukhanov,
and Fomin are put on trial in the abandoned city of Chernobyl. Shcherbina is called first to give
testimony, explaining the general workings of a nuclear power plant. Khomyuk and Legasov
testify on the events leading up to the accident, based on interviews with people in the control
room. Flashbacks show that due to a ten-hour delay in a safety test and Dyatlov's impatience to
carry it out, the reactor stalled, then experienced a power spike. Akimov activated the emergency
shutdown, but a design flaw in the control rods spiked the power to at least ten times the
reactor's limit before it exploded. Legasov reveals the suppressed information about the
Leningrad plant, admitting he lied in his previous testimony in Vienna. He is detained by the
KGB and informed that his testimony will be suppressed in the state media; furthermore, he is
forbidden to speak to anyone about Chernobyl, he will receive no credit for his role in containing
the disaster, and he will never work again. The ending shows pictures and video of the real-life
Legasov and other major figures, revealing their fates, as well as the ongoing aftermath of the
accident. It ends with a statement that the show was dedicated to those who "suffered and
sacrificed."

1.

 Episodes were broadcast concurrently on HBO and Sky Atlantic, on Monday at 9:00 pm
EDT/Tuesday at 2:00 am BST respectively.

1.  Ukrainian for "Memory Eternal", an exclamation used in Eastern Orthodox

funeral or memorial services.

Production
Development and writing

Writer Craig Mazin began researching for the project in 2014, by reading books and government
reports from inside and outside the Soviet Union. Mazin also interviewed nuclear scientists to
learn how a reactor works, and former Soviet citizens to gain a better idea of the culture in 1986.
Mazin also read several first-person accounts in order to bring additional authenticity to the
story. He explained, "When you're reading the personal stories of people who were there—
people who lived near the plant, people who worked at the plant, people who were sent to
Chernobyl as part of the effort to clean it up—in those individual accounts, that's really where
the story came alive".[16]

Mazin's interest in creating the series originated when he decided to write something that
addressed "how we're struggling with the global war on the truth right now".[17] Another
inspiration is that he knew Chernobyl exploded, but he did not know why. He explained, "I didn't
know why, and I thought there was this inexplicable gap in my knowledge ... So, I began reading
about it, just out of this very dry, intellectual curiosity, and what I discovered was that, while the
story of the explosion is fascinating, and we make it really clear exactly why and how it
happened, what really grabbed me and held me were the incredible stories of the human beings
who lived through it, and who suffered and sacrificed to save the people that they loved, to save
their countrymen and to save a continent, and continued to do so, against odds that were startling
and kept getting worse. I was so moved by it. It was like I had discovered a war that people just
hadn't really depicted, and I became obsessed".[18] Mazin said that "The lesson of Chernobyl isn't
that modern nuclear power is dangerous. The lesson is that lying, arrogance, and suppression of
criticism are dangerous".[19]

In preparation for the miniseries, Mazin visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.[20] Mazin made
the decision in the early stages not to use Russian or Ukrainian accents, and instead, have the
actors use their natural accents. Mazin explained, "We had an initial thought that we didn't want
to do the 'Boris and Natasha' cliched accent because the Russian accent can turn comic very
easily. At first, we thought that maybe we would have people do these sort of vaguely Eastern
European accents—not really strong but noticeable. What we found very quickly is that actors
will act accents. They will not act, they will act accents and we were losing everything about
these people that we loved. Honestly, I think after maybe one or two auditions we said 'Ok, new
rule. We're not doing that anymore'".[21] Mazin also did not cast any American actors, as that
could potentially pull the audience out of the story.[22]

On July 26, 2017, it was announced that HBO and Sky had given a series order to Chernobyl. It
was HBO's first co-production with Sky UK. The five-episode miniseries was written by Craig
Mazin and directed by Johan Renck. Mazin also served as an executive producer alongside
Carolyn Strauss and Jane Featherstone, with Chris Fry and Renck acting as co-executive
producers.[4][23] On March 11, 2019, it was announced that the miniseries would premiere on May
6, 2019.[24] On June 4, 2019, Craig Mazin made the original scripts of all episodes available for
downloading as PDFs (see External links below).[25]

A companion podcast for the miniseries had new episodes published as each TV episode aired on
HBO.[26] The podcast featured conversations between Mazin and host Peter Sagal including
discussions of where the show was as true as possible to historical events and where events were
consolidated or modified as part of artistic license.[27]

Casting

Simultaneously with the initial series announcement, it was confirmed that Jared Harris would
star in the series.[23] On March 19, 2018, it was announced that Stellan Skarsgård and Emily
Watson had joined the main cast.[28] In May 2018, it was announced that Paul Ritter, Jessie
Buckley, Adrian Rawlins, and Con O'Neill also had joined the cast.[29]

Filming

Soviet-era district of Fabijoniškės (Vilnius, Lithuania) was used to portray Pripyat

Principal photography began in April 2018 in Lithuania.[23] Initial filming started on May 13,
2018, in Fabijoniškės, a residential district in Vilnius, Lithuania, which was used to portray the
Ukrainian city of Pripyat, since the district maintained an authentic Soviet atmosphere. An area
of densely built panel housing apartments served as a location for the evacuation scenes. Director
Johan Renck heavily criticised the amount of diverse and eye-catching modern windows in the
houses, but was not concerned about removing them in post-production. At the end of March,
production moved to Visaginas, Lithuania, to shoot both the exterior and interior of the Ignalina
Nuclear Power Plant, a decommissioned nuclear power station that is sometimes referred to as
"Chernobyl's sister" due to its visual resemblance and the nuclear reactor design used at both
Chernobyl and Ignalina (RBMK nuclear power reactor). In early June 2018, production moved
to Ukraine to shoot minor final scenes.[30] The filming of Chernobyl took 16 weeks.[31]

Music

The musical score was composed by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. The score
incorporated some sound recordings from an actual nuclear power plant.[32]

Historical discrepancies
The series was exhaustively researched,[33] but some liberties were taken for dramatic purposes,
such as Legasov being present at the trial.[34][35] The epilogue acknowledges that the character of
Ulana Khomyuk is fictional, a composite of multiple Soviet scientists. Chernobyl expert Adam
Higginbotham points out in an interview that there was no need for scientists to "uncover the
truth"; that "many nuclear scientists knew all along that there were problems with this reactor—
the problems that led ultimately to an explosion and disaster".[36] Higginbotham and others also
say that the widely reported "Bridge of Death", purportedly used by Chernobyl spectators all of
whom later died, is an urban legend, and Higginbotham has spoken with someone who was on
the bridge.[37][38][39] The helicopter crash actually occurred months later than shown.[40][38][41]

According to disaster survivors interviewed by the BBC, the show misinterprets characters of
Brukhanov, Fomin and Dyatlov, and incorrectly portrays them as villains. Oleksiy Breus, senior
engineer at the Unit 4 even considers their portrayal "not a fiction, but a blatant lie".[42]

According to The Christian Science Monitor correspondent Fred Weir, "Everybody [in Russia
and Ukraine] seems to agree that the miniseries goes overboard with its characters, depicting
Soviet officials and plant management as too evil and conniving".[43] Russian documentary
producer Oleg Voinov who made a film about the Chernobyl disaster said that Chernobyl is
"wonderfully shot, professionally edited, and the special effects are great. But it doesn't come
close to reflecting reality. [...] A lot of the facts presented are just not true".[43] The New York
Times reviewer Mike Hale criticized Chernobyl's "propensity toward Hollywood inflation—to
show us things that didn't happen" and for taking "fictional license over the line into contrivance
and melodrama". According to Hale, "Mazin puts Legasov on the witness stand at the trial and,
in a stroke of pure fantasy, has him boldly denounce Soviet corner-cutting and secrecy, after
which he's hauled into a back room by the KGB".[44]

The series seemingly depicts the physicist character Ulana Khomyuk believing that victims of
radiation poisoning are radioactive themselves and dangerous to be around, because she
reprimands the wife of Vasily Ignatenko, Lyudmila for touching him while pregnant.[45] This
might have been the belief of average people at the time as described by Lyudmila herself,[46] but
not that of a physicist as in reality, once cleaned, victims are generally not themselves dangerous.
[47]
The protective plastic screens around victims of Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) are used to
protect the victims from other people due to their weaker immune system.[45] Some nurses were
worried to work in the victims' proximity and indeed soldiers had to carry the bodies after their
death.[48][unreliable medical source?] When turbine hall employee Shashenok experienced mortally
wounding fatal shrapnel from blast debris and entrained hot particles, he, and not the responding
firefighter Vasily Ignatenko who died from ARS, needed specific burial arrangements; there is
no evidence that Ignatenko or the 27 other first responders required burial containment. While
Shashenok alone had to be buried beneath zinc/lead or concrete, this was to prevent potential
ground contamination, and not for the safety of the cemetery-attending public.[40][49][50] Lyudmilla
Ignatenko, wife of Vasily Ignatenko, suggests he required similar undertaking; Lyudmilla, who
was pregnant at the time but lied to the hospital staff to see her husband,[40] describes accusations
from others that the radioactivity she had been exposed to around Vasily while in hospital had a
life-threatening impact on her unborn child.[46][51][52] Two months later she gave birth to her baby,
who died hours after being born.[40]

Leonid Bershidsky, writing for The Moscow Times, finds fault with some of the period details,
writing "Some lapses were probably too costly to avoid even when the filmmakers knew about
them, like modern plastic windows in Soviet buildings. But there's plenty more. Chernobyl is too
far from Moscow to reach by helicopter ... Nor, of course, could Deputy Prime Minister Boris
Shcherbina even imagine threatening to throw Valery Legasov, an esteemed member of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences, off a helicopter—this was 1986, not 1936...".[53] Writing in The
New Yorker, Masha Gessen criticizes the series for depicting Soviet citizens "who appear to act
out of fear of being shot. This is inaccurate: summary executions, or even delayed executions on
orders of a single apparatchik, were not a feature of Soviet life after the nineteen-thirties."[54]
According to Gessen, it was the reality of this power relationship that the series most seriously
failed to portray. For Gessen, the scenes of scientists criticizing the system in confrontation with
bureaucrats were "repetitive and ridiculous"—it would have been unthinkable. The defining
condition of Soviet life was resignation.[54]

Major General Nikolai Tarakanov, who headed the real "liquidators" in 1986, praised HBO for a
"great job" in an interview with Russian state media, but stated many of the things that did not
happen. For example, stray animals were shot, but not in the residential area and not in the way
portrayed in the show; radiation levels were not hidden from the "liquidators"; he did not see any
naked miners. Also, he points to some inconsistencies with Legasov, who did not take part in a
major meeting portrayed in the series as he was elsewhere at the time.[55] Plant engineer Oleksiy
Breus told the BBC the miners "took off their clothes, but not like it was shown in the film, not
right down to nothing".[56]

Pioneering a then novel treatment for the most exposed ARS patients in 1986,[57][58] then writing a
response to the series in 2019,[59] UCLA doctor Robert Gale took issue with the suggestion his
patients were dangerous to visitors along with the portrayal of Soviet authorities as reluctant to
seek outside help. "I was immediately invited to come to Moscow and shortly thereafter to bring
three colleagues," Gale wrote. "In my experience dealing with nuclear accidents, this is rather
unusual and indicates a desire to do everything possible to help the victims—throwing politics to
the wind. And whilst in Moscow, we were free to expropriate supplies and equipment from many
Russian medical centers." Gale said the accident was impossible to cover-up, as portrayed by
HBO. "Anyone looking at the destroyed reactor building, mass of firefighting equipment, and
personnel streaming into the reactor complex—the smoke from the fire clearly visible from
Pripyat about 4 km away etc.—I cannot imagine anyone would try to cover this up. It would be
like standing in lower Manhattan after destruction of the Twin Towers and pretending there was
no problem. ... All governments try to contain bad news of this type," notes Gale. "I see rather
little difference between the initial U.S. government reaction to the Three Mile Island (TMI)
accident, the initial Japan government reaction to the Fukushima-Daiichi accident, and the Soviet
response to Chernobyl."[60]

Families that lived in the nearby area at the time of the disaster, have criticized the series as
provocative and politically motivated, giving a different view of the events and the aftermath, as
well as the way the people reacted.[61]

Reception
Critical response
Chernobyl received widespread critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 96% approval
rating with an average score of 8.91 out of 10, based on 92 reviews. The site's critical consensus
reads, "Chernobyl rivets with a creeping dread that never dissipates, dramatizing a national
tragedy with sterling craft and an intelligent dissection of institutional rot".[62] On Metacritic, it
has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "universal
acclaim".[63] In June 2019, it became the highest-rated TV series of all-time on IMDb, with a
score of 9.7/10 from over 140,000 users.[64] As of November 2019, it is the fifth-highest rated TV
series with a score of 9.5/10 from over 380,000 users.[65]

Reviewers from The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and BBC observed parallels to
contemporary society by focusing on the power of information and how dishonest leaders can
make mistakes beyond their comprehension.[66] Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic hailed the series as
a "grim disquisition on the toll of devaluing the truth";[67] Hank Stuever of The Washington Post
praised it for showcasing "what happens when lying is standard and authority is abused".[68]
Meera Syal praised Chernobyl as a "fiercely intelligent exposition of the human cost of state
censorship. Would love to see similar exposé" of the Bhopal disaster.[69] David Morrison was
"struck by the attention to accuracy" and says the "series does an outstanding job of presenting
the technical and human issues of the accident."[70] Aaron Giovannone writes critically of the
series in the socialist publication Jacobin, stating that "even as we worry about the ongoing
ecological crisis caused by capitalism, Chernobyl revels in the failure of the historical alternative
to capitalism," which reinforces the status quo, offering us "no way out" of the crisis.[71]

Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian response

The miniseries was well received by some critics and audience in Russia.[72][73][74] Vladimir
Medinsky, Russian culture minister, whose father was one of the Chernobyl liquidators, called
the series "masterfully made" and "filmed with great respect for ordinary people".[75] It was
reported that Russian NTV television channel has been producing its own version of the
Chernobyl story in which the CIA plays a key role in the disaster.[76][77] However, the series in
question has been in production since before HBO's miniseries and was not created in response
to it.[78] An apparent trailer for the series was uploaded to YouTube but was later deleted
following negative reaction.[79]

The Communist Party of Communists of Russia called for a libel lawsuit against Chernobyl's
writer, director and producers, describing the show as "disgusting". In a statement, party member
Sergey Malinkovich spoke of the party's intentions to lobby TV regulator Roskomnadzor to
request that it block local access to the series.[80] Marianna Prysiazhniuk of Vice Media notes that
multiple Russian media outlets describe the miniseries as one-sided, incomplete, or anti-Russian
propaganda.[81] Argumenty i Fakty dismissed the show as "a caricature and not the truth" and
"The only things missing are the bears and accordions!" quipped Stanislav Natanzon, lead anchor
of Russia-24, one of the country's main news channels.[82]

In Ukraine, Anna Korolevskaya, deputy director at the Chernobyl museum in Kiev, said “Today
young people coming to power in Ukraine know nothing about that disaster in 1986. It was a
necessary film to make and HBO have obviously tried their best; as for us, we are going to create
a special tour about Chernobyl’s historic truth, inspired by the HBO series.”[83] Bermet Talant, a
Ukrainian journalist, noted that "In Russia, a state that still takes pride in the Soviet legacy, the
series has faced criticism from the official media. Meanwhile, many in Ukraine appreciated the
series for humanizing a tragic chapter in the country’s history. […] Ukrainian viewers also
appreciated HBO’s “Chernobyl” for praising the heroism and self-sacrifice of ordinary
people."[84]

Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, whose book inspired the series, said "We are
now witnessing a new phenomenon that Belarusians, who suffered greatly and thought they
knew a lot about the tragedy, have completely changed their perception about Chernobyl and are
interpreting this tragedy in a whole new way. The authors accomplished this, even though they
are from a completely different world -- not from Belarus, not from our region." She also noted
its popularity with young Belarusians