Debunking the Myths of the HBO Chernobyl series (2023)

It's funny that this series seems as if it is being confused as a documentary. It was a dramatic telling of a story. Creative licensing was in full effect. The first item in the "Series VS tapes: point by point" is a very common use of that creative licensing. Trying to follow multiple people in a work like this gets tiring and a bit boring. The details are kept, but it's easier to follow when those multiple people are written as one character. It's why the term "littleuns" was used in Lord of The Flies as the individuals were not important to the story, just the fact they were there and needed to be considered allowed the story to not get bogged down.

The series was also told completely in ~8 hours of content, yet this event clearly took longer than 8 hours to play out. Why no critique on that?

This kind of "for the drama" variance is very common. Look at archaeologists reaction to Coogans film about Richard III which went to court.

Films, even documentary, don't always get it right and often don't even try because "based on" admits a lot of change.

People often don't understand history. "The KGB regiments shot deserters in ww2 Stalingrad" since the KGB was formed in 1954, that's a serious mis-statement of history. Should we be surprised the role of soviet structural agencies is misunderstood by an american dramatisation? (This kgb comment is a generalisation for illustration not a dig at anything in the doco)

Still. It's a pretty egregious list.

At the end of the day, creators want an entertaining show and that usually requires intrigue, interpersonal conflict, character growth, good vs. evil, etc.

Biopics/dramatizations of events often bring multiple minor characters together into a single person.

I would be more bothered by the change of small details irrelevant to the narrative than I am by larger character changes. I would prefer that the mainline details stay the same - chain of events, impact to the town, aftermath - but I am not watching the series in order to write a paper. I appreciate the articles which document the fiction vs. reality of historical dramas, but I do not share in any anger. Then again, I'm not related to anyone whose character was represented in the series.

> Legasov commended the swiftness and efficiency of the government response at all levels

Sure, but in those times, he would be compelled to say such things. That doesn't mean he believed it.

It seems the main faults that OP finds in the show are that Legasov had issues with his government, when in "reality" he thought they were great. But is that "reality," or oppression?

I also don't see the fault in highlighting him as the "main" scientist; it's a show.

I think we need to also debunk the debunking.

You know, some of us were already living then and it is not some distant event we have no knowledge of.

For example:

> Re: The soviet government did not want to evacuate the town of Pripyat

> Debunking: Legasov indicated the opposite. He said that the decision to evacuate was made quickly, even though the levels of radiation in the town were not considered to be dangerous.

WTF? The level of radiation was not considered to be dangerous when your reactor was blown open? Are you fucking kidding?

> Re: The government made an effort to conceal everything regarding the accident and what was happening.

> Legasov stated that this was not the case, and that information was not provided at the time because it didn't exist. The situation was very confusing, and information was scarce, coming from multiple conflicting sources and estimates, making it difficult to collect, filter, and access the correct information.

The accident happened on 26 April 1986, and on the 1st of May, _4 days later_ there was a celebration of Labour Day - a mandatory parade in Kyiv within just 100 km. And no-one knew about the disaster from the official sources. Only people with access to foreign radio knew about the disaster, others were happily marching with red flags on the streets breathing polluted air.

And so on, and so forth...

He claims that they had all the equipment ready and knew the actual levels, but at the same time were confused and information was scarce, and the level of radiation were not that bad - it this some type of propaganda for the dumb?

It's a dramatization, of course there are going to be liberties taken and creative license used to further the (TFA might say contrived) story.

One thing not mentioned in TFA, though, is how those suffering from radiation sickness (first responders like the firefighter Ignatenko, etc.) are portrayed almost as if they are contagious, and so should not be touched. The Chernobyl series is not the only one to do this, either, and it can lead to viewers thinking radiation sickness is something you can "catch" from someone else.

I don't know why they never make it clear that it's for the sake of the sickened themselves that contact should be minimized (assuming all contaminated clothing etc. has already been discarded), since their immune and other internal systems are totally compromised by radiation poisoning.

M. Gessen wrote a much better piece about the accuracy of HBO's Chernobyl:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-cher...

This piece seems a little confused, since Legasov wasn't the primary source for the show?

This is a really weird post. The thrust appears to be a contrarian desire to portray the Soviet government as capable and competent, and I wonder if it's the author's naivete or some sort of an agenda. The post latches on small discrepancies, but somehow ignores the entire impetus of Legasov's tapes. He sure didn't record them to praise the government:

"And when I visited the Chernobyl station after the accident and saw what was happening there, I myself drew a precise and unequivocal conclusion, that the Chernobyl disaster is an apotheosis, the pinnacle of all the mismanagement that has been carried out for decades in our country."

The show is obviously a "based on a true story" dramatization that invented personas, added tension where little existed, and so forth. But the overall thesis checks out: it was a massive failure of governance before the disaster and during it, including the well-documented fact that the Soviets were initially withholding information from the rest of the world and turning down aid.

The bit about "The water tanks in the reactor were full, and the uranium fuel rods were at risk of melting through the water tanks, potentially releasing a force equivalent to a multi-megaton nuclear device and devastating much of Europe with radiation." is sort of complex to judge.

It is absolutely true that that scenario was impossible and couldn't actually happen. But as far as we can tell (documented in Voices of Chernobyl) someone at a similar meeting to the one portrayed in the TV show did really say that that could happen as portrayed in the TV show. But of course the audience is going to assume that things scientists say in shows like this are accurate.

Dyatlov's interview from the 90s, which is still available on youtube [1], seems to fit better with the account given in the hit book "Midnight in Chernobyl" (which was the basis for the series,) than the story written for TV. To me the series just seemed like a rehash of the same movie tropes we've seen time and time again in dramatizations of the accident, compared to a true adaptation of book, which included a lot of updated analysis beyond the IAEA original report.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8__v9EswN4

>It was about Anatoly Grishchenko, a Soviet helicopter pilot who had served in Chernobyl and, like many others, had developed cancer as a result.

If there's one thing that pissed me off about the TV series, it was its poor to non-existent storytelling surrounding the helicopter crews who ran sortie after sortie right over the burning reactor—around the clock—knowing full well the grave risks posed by the radiation.

Instead, we were shown one disjointed helicopter crash scene amidst a still-burning reactor that made them look like bumbling fools attempting something futile.

In real life, the Chernobyl incident happened on 26 April, 1986. The Mi-8 crash where it struck the crane didn't happen until October 2nd, 1986.

Aviation was instrumental in containing the disaster during its early phases. Those crews helped save an untold number of lives. Their portrayal or lack thereof in the show was massively disrespectful to their contributions.

---

Between 27 April and 1 May, about 1800 helicopter flights deposit over 5,000 metric tons of sand, lead, clay, and neutron absorbing boron onto the burning reactor. It is now known that virtually none of the neutron absorbers reached the core. [0]

[0] https://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline...

Hey Omar! I met you briefly in Grenoble many years ago. I hope you're doing well.

I only recently watched this series and found it very entertaining. But I never expected it to be very accurate. It's definitely been dramatized for TV. I definitely didn't get an anti-nuclear sentiment from the show, I mostly think they were trying to portray a negative view of Soviet Bureaucracy.

Legit question... I have not watched it. Is it actually good on it's own merits?

It was a good show. I've re-watched it a couple of times. The actors are excellent, and it's well-done.

I take it for granted that a lot of it was amped up for drama, but other sources (several documentaries) seem to agree on a lot of the actions and timelines. The show added motivations, and some fictional characters.

I also enjoyed Dopesick, and that's a subject that I have direct experience and knowledge of. I have pretty much the same issues with that show.

But I still enjoyed both of them as dramas.

If I want facts, I'll do my own research.

I'm currently writing my own expose on the historical inaccuracies in the Harry Potter series.

It really annoys me when fiction is based on real events, takes a lot of liberty with the source material that it enters into the public consciousness.

The classic case is the "The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus" where it was claimed he was aiming to prove the Earth was not flat. My personal peeve is movies like "The Imitation Game".

Great analysis! While HBO’s Chernobyl is gripping, it dramatizes events for storytelling. It’s important to separate fact from fiction to truly understand the disaster’s history and impact.

To be honest, I find most of these inconsistencies to be inconsequential for enjoying the film. The ones that really get to me though are the dramatic overestimates on the devastation caused by Chernobyl, and the effects of the radiation itself. Most of the effect of the film comes from this belief that the radiation really is that dangerous. When you know it isn't, it takes quite a bit away from the premise.

There is a podcast [1] featuring the showrunner Craig Mazin who is also a very conscientious and prolific podcaster [2] who cares deeply about balancing fact with a compelling narrative.

This is the basic difference between "based on" and documentary. Having worked as a screenwriter myself I can assure you that even if the script had been 100% factual, things would have been changed beyond the creators' control anyway.

1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-chernobyl-podcast/...

2 https://scriptnotes.net/

> It’s like we’ve chosen to ignore the truth in favor of a good story or a good feeling.

Aww, man. I've got some bad news for you about literally any fact you know that isn't derived from math. And even that is still, philosophically, just some stories we're telling ourselves about the observations we're all seeing.

Nit pick after nit pick

As a piece of writing it does not come across as sober or thoughtful. Rather it’s filled with mixed metaphors, hyperbole, and leaps of logic.

No indications the real-life event was an _act of god_ or _natural disaster_. The HBO series is a dramatization of human error, and stands or falls on the merits of fiction.

In other words—Sorry you didn’t like this dramatization of the disaster. As other said, it’s not a documentary.

This is an incredibly naive and wild take. The first complaint is that the show focuses on Legasov and “claims” he was the primary scientist when Legasov says he wasn’t, then proceeds to “debunk” the show based on the tape alone. A testimony BTW which is not only not always consistent with the multitude of other sources and evidence but also sometimes contradicts things Legasov himself said (allegedly or on-record).

I don’t defend the show as an academic, completely accurate documentary, because it isn’t and never claimed to be. But suggesting it is almost entirely falsified is an awful take. I can’t wait to read about their outraged takedown piece on Titanic once they get around to reading one survivor’s memoirs.

Propaganda at its finest...

The government response to the disaster was slow and inadequate. It sure was they denied it actually happened for a pretty long time.

Shakespeare's Richard III also inaccurate.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2013-02-07-source-shakespeares-ina...