Fire in the sky Return to ground zero with ‘Chernobyl’

By Francis Babin TV Media

The year is 2019, but we might as well be living in 1994. The summer’s most anticipated movie is “The Lion King,” “Friends” is one of the hottest television shows, and overalls and, heaven help us, fanny packs might be making a comeback. As usual in the entertainment world, what’s old is new again, and this time the pop culture pendulum has swung back to the 1990s. Look no further than the small screen for evidence of this ’90s domination. From “Fuller House” and “Schooled” to the upcoming “Mad About You” revival, it’s safe to say that we are in the thick of it.

That does not mean that other decades are getting short shrift, however. When it comes to miniseries based on true events, it seems that the 1980s are all the rage. “I Am the Night” on TNT, “Mindhunter” on Netflix, “Black Monday” on Showtime — these are just a few of the current ’80s-themed series, and this week another show joins the throng. Travel back to 1986 and witness the haunting true story of one of the world’s worst man-made catastrophes when “Chernobyl” premieres Monday, May 6, on HBO.

Imagine waking up to see birds falling from a sky filled with smoke and fire while a loudspeaker loudly repeats “Attention! Attention!” This might sound like something out of a post-apocalyptic film, or even a nightmare, but it was the terrifying reality that the citizens of Pripyat, Soviet Ukraine, woke up to on one fateful day in April 1986. The Chernobyl power plant located near the nowabandoned town had suffered a catastrophic nuclear accident and was unleashing radioactive material that threatened all of eastern Europe — and that was just the beginning.

HBO’s “Chernobyl” explores how and why the nuclear disaster happened. Most people are aware of the reactor explosion, but that is often the extent of the general public’s knowledge about the accident. Some are even less knowledge able, only knowing what they have seen in horror movies such as “Chernobyl Diaries” (2012). How did the explosion at the Chernobyl power plant hap pen? Who was at fault? Could it have been prevented? How will the radiation impact the surrounding area and its people? Appointed by the Kremlin to investigate the accident, Soviet scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris, “The Terror”) and nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson, “Genius”) seek answers to these important questions and hope to ensure that something like this can never happen again. The pair report their findings to Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgård, “River”), head of the Bureau for Fuel and Energy of the Soviet Union, who is tasked with leading the investigation into the disaster. During the scientists’ investigation into the how and why of the disaster, risked their lives to save others, and some ultimately perished from radiation-related illnesses.

Directed by Johan Renck (“The Last Panthers”), the five-part miniseries digs deep into the fate of the firefighters, soldiers, first responders, townspeople and plant workers who were in the path of the disaster, as well as the bureaucrats who wanted to sweep the devastation under the rug. The actions of Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter, “Cold Feet”), Lyudmyla Ignatenko (Jessie Buckley, “The Woman in White”), Nikolai Fomin (Adrian Rawlins, “Darkest Hour,” 2017), Viktor Bryukhanov (Con O’Neill, “Uncle”) and numerous others are portrayed with edge-of-yourseat accuracy.

At the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, writer and creator Craig Mazin explained that he wanted the miniseries to be as close to reality as possible: “We want to be as accurate as we can be. We never changed anything to make it more dramatic or to hype it up. The last thing we wanted to do is fall into the same trap that liars fall into.”

While pitching the idea of a television drama about the Chernobyl disaster to the president of HBO Miniseries, Mazin described the show as a combination of horror movie, war movie, political thriller and a courtroom drama, and he’s not wrong.

“Chernobyl” was more than a nuclear accident, and in this era of misinformation, the government’s reaction to the disaster seems incredibly topical. The miniseries aims to shed light on this misinformation and the lessdiscussed aspects of the tragedy.

The 1980s were marred with a number of large-scale tragedies, such as the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the 1984 Bhopal disaster and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill — these were major news stories in their day, and the effects of some can still be felt, but they are not talked about with the same fervor and interest as the Chernobyl disaster is today. Perhaps it is due to our fear of nuclear power (in large part because of this incident) or the creepiness of a radioactive ghost town stuck in time — regardless of what part of the story resonates with us, understanding the disaster is important. On Monday, May 6, discover what truly happened in the No. 4 nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant when “Chernobyl” premieres on HBO.

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— Dayna Jillson

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