Chernobyl

Growing up I did a lot of theater, and I'll always remember this one line from a play about the Holocaust I was in. The line contained the phrase "a long march of horrors", and the director made a point that I needed to enunciate the word "horrors", so it didn't sound like I was saying "long march of whores". Chernobyl was a long march of horrors. Basically from the very beginning I couldn't help but frequently mutter "Jeeeeeezus" or "oh my gawwwwwwd" at every harrowing instance of some unfortunate innocent exposing themselves to bonkers amounts of radiation, or at the smug audacity and vileness of party officials lying through their teeth or sending a ton of people into tragic, lethal situations. It's just insane that this happened, a human error fuck-up of biblical proportions. It's an incredible story and a sobering cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris. The production design on this is fantastic! The sets and costumes all felt very authentic, and the sound design effectively hammered home the danger and foreboding tone. The performances were all great too, despite it being clear that few, if any, were actually Russian/Ukrainian people; I had to look it up, but yep, that's actually Jessie Buckley, not some random Russian actress looking just like her. An unexpected joy was the depth of Shcherbina's story arc. I typically am most interested in the scientist characters, but it was nice to see his character go from being totally unaware of how nuclear reactors work, to having his little presentation in court on the cause of the meltdown. You know you connected with a story when you're cheering on the characters when they succeed or grow. This series made me want to cry for all the victims of this devastating tragedy, it's an amazing, engaging dramatization, and I'd recommend it to basically everyone (so long as you can stomach it). Also, I'm hella stoked for Oppenheimer coming out this summer 🙃