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Chernobyl on HBO

Discussion in 'Television Shows' started by Lindigo, May 21, 2019.

  1. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    This is a shockingly good miniseries on HBO. I kept meaning to make a thread for it, but I would be in a state of frozen horror at the end of every episode, just staring into space. It's three episodes in, but well worth catching up.

    The special effects are horrifying. In this last episode, one of the first firefighter responders was ... dissolving? I never saw anything like it. Every cell of his body was disrupted. They don't linger on it. The camera is almost always on his wife. She had snuck/bribed her way into the hospital and she kept talking to him, even joking, in a way that accepted and loved him as human no matter what physical condition he was changing into.

    The characters are all perfection and so vastly different from each other. The insanity of what you are allowed to say and what you must ignore in Soviet Russia keeps me permanently disoriented. Tens of thousands of lives depend on telling the truth, but truth is repeatedly sacrificed in ways that stun me. You think you can imagine what I am saying, but you aren't.

    You think you already understand Chernobyl, but you don't.
     
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  2. HungryZombie

    HungryZombie Active Member

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    Sounds interesting, thanks for the heads up.
     
  3. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    YAY. It is SO good.

    youtube posts a podcast after each episode. I listen to it in the background while I calm myself playing solitaire. The writer clarifies that at times the dialog would strike him as unbelievable, but he uses it because it is what various people actually said. (I didn't find any dialog unbelievable. It totally sweeps me along. The acting is terrific.) One character is a composite. They sort through all of that, and he tells more stories of individuals that he didn't have time to work into the miniseries. It's a super podcast, and I don't like podcasts.
     
  4. PepperAnn

    PepperAnn Well-Known Member

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    Well I’m riveted and I’m only 20 mins in. Lol
     
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  5. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    YAY! I'm so happy you're watching. It takes a brutal toll on your heart, but it is so good.
     
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  6. PepperAnn

    PepperAnn Well-Known Member

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    Well this series is leaving me perplexed and traumatized. It is SHOCKING to me how much they keep trying to sweep under the rug and how much the citizens are clueless about.

    Um, hello? HIROSHIMA?????

    I know, it's Russia. Suppressed. But Jesus Christ.
     
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  7. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    Yes! That was how I reacted, too. Germany figuring out a problem independently and telling everyone to get inside, while Russia at the dead center lets life go on as usual--:eek::eek::eek:. Just for one example.

    It really brings it home how different our countries are. I felt so disoriented, like my brain had vertigo.

    This is TV at its finest, conveying something we all thought we understood, but simply couldn't.
     
  8. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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  9. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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  10. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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  11. PepperAnn

    PepperAnn Well-Known Member

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    Not clicking. I am only halfway through episode three. :D
     
  12. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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  13. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    I wondered. That's real progress, though!
     
  14. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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  15. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    You reminded me I haven't listened to part 4 of the podcast yet. See ya later.
     
  16. PepperAnn

    PepperAnn Well-Known Member

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    LMAO
     
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  17. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    I'm baaack! I so highly recommend the podcasts. Absolutely fascinating extra detail. :)
     
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  18. Stealth

    Stealth Well-Known Member

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    Have now seen the first 4 episodes. It's very well done, but extremely depressing. The refusal of the Soviets to ask America for robots to help with the cleanup on the roof was one of the more striking moments. It wasn't surprising that they didn't, but it was still amazing that they'd rather have thousands of soldiers spend 90 seconds each on the roof and then running out of there when that short time expired.

    Just watching the various different levels of exposure that the citizens, workers, soldiers etc faced is chilling in itself.

    Another thing I found interesting is how people can collectively come to accept pure fiction as as reality, or at the very least fail to adequately challenge the lies. Early in the series there was the older party leader telling them all how Lenin would be proud and they needed to trust the government's account. Meanwhile they're all being exposed to lethal amounts of radiation.
     
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  19. Lindigo

    Lindigo Well-Known Member

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    Yes, to everything you said. I'm glad I watched it as single episodes so I could catch my emotional breath after each hour in that world.

    The level of fear they live under is so well done. Everyone is so quickly cowed. Intellectually I realize that's how it was (still is?), but this show makes me acutely aware of societal fear on a visceral level that is new to me.
     
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  20. JEA13

    JEA13 Well-Known Member

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    I wouldnt want to have been a person assigned to shoot the animals many of which were happy to see you.
     
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