Don’t think we’ve had a thread on this series yet, apart from the one on the vehicles. A must-watch, in my opinion. It captures the horror of the accident, the incompetence and design flaws that led up to it, and the horrible aftermath. Stellar acting all around. Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård are amazing in their roles.

For me, the most powerful scenes were: the spectators at the railway bridge in the first episode. The dust and debris from the explosion starts falling around them as they casually watch the fire and chat about the beautiful colours produced by the ionized air above the open core. They all died, and the bridge became known as the bridge of death..
The firemen. Poor bast..ds!
The men who were sent by the disbelieving deputy manager to report on what they saw. Three of them went from the control room to the reactor hall. One of them opened a heavy steel door and held it open for the two others. These two entered the hall... and ended up looking directly into the open core of the destroyed reactor! eek

Same with the guy who was sent up on the roof by the plant managers. Imagine looking straight into an open reactor core! All of them came away with «nuclear tan» after just a few seconds, similar to a heavy sunburn. All died within weeks, except for the guy holding the door. Must have been horrible. The instant they looked at something like that, they must have known their lives were over.

Meanwhile, the local Party hacks convened in a safe shelter, receiving reports of graphite strewn on the ground and heavy fires, yet somehow displayed staggering ignorance and stupidity and downplayed everything.

What a senseless tragedy! And what an excellent series.


In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!