Chernobyl Miniseries - HBO

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 8th 2019, 8:25 am

Since there's a bit of buzz about this ongoing show I suppose it's own thread is needed. The 1st episode aired on Monday. Four more to go.

The Chernobyl disaster has been kind of an obsession of mine so I'm pretty well versed with everything that went down so I won't speak to too much to come for anyone who might not know as much. I will say from what happened in the first episode, those first firefighters that got there were totally fucked without knowing what they were getting into. It was a little horrifying just watching where people go right after the explosion and be able to figure out if they will die just by their proximity to the exposed core.

Without getting too deep into what is to come, there was a real chance of a second much larger explosion that could have totally fucked a good portion of Europe. Pretty bone chilling to think about what might have happened.

Here's a podcast that covers the 1st episode. They talk about why they don't use Russian accents pretty early on.

by **Nordic** May 8th 2019, 8:34 am

Great first episode. Interesting political power dynamics. I guess a smock and cap serves as a radiation suit in Russia. Jesus.

by **Floyd Robertson** May 8th 2019, 8:43 am

The first episode was awesome and nightmare-inducing. It will be hard to top.

I about jumped out of my chair several times to yell at people. And then the bird fell out of the sky. affraid

by **kingstonlake** May 8th 2019, 12:33 pm

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:Since there's a bit of buzz about this ongoing show I suppose it's own thread is needed. The 1st episode aired on Monday. Four more to go.

The Chernobyl disaster has been kind of an obsession of mine so I'm pretty well versed with everything that went down so I won't speak to too much to come for anyone who might not know as much. I will say from what happened in the first episode, those first firefighters that got there were totally fucked without knowing what they were getting into. It was a little horrifying just watching where people go right after the explosion and be able to figure out if they will die just by their proximity to the exposed core.

Without getting too deep into what is to come, there was a real chance of a second much larger explosion that could have totally fucked a good portion of Europe. Pretty bone chilling to think about what might have happened.

Here's a podcast that covers the 1st episode. They talk about why they don't use Russian accents pretty early on.

Actually, quite the opposite...... Wink

Watching right now...

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 8th 2019, 1:19 pm

Here's a cool time lapse video of the installation of the new and improved sarcophagus.

by **Floyd Robertson** May 8th 2019, 2:08 pm

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:

Here's a cool time lapse video of the installation of the new and improved sarcophagus.

Two clicks later I'm watching the end of time. What's in store for us in 30 billion trillion trillion years really makes you want to party like there's no tomorrow.

ps. The video you embedded is pretty cool.

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 8th 2019, 2:51 pm

Floyd Robertson wrote:
Watch Out Pylon! wrote:

Here's a cool time lapse video of the installation of the new and improved sarcophagus.

Two clicks later I'm watching the end of time. What's in store for us in 30 billion trillion trillion years really makes you want to party like there's no tomorrow.

ps. The video you embedded is pretty cool.

Chernobyl Miniseries - HBO Science_neil_degrasse_tyson

by **kingstonlake** May 8th 2019, 2:52 pm

Pretty good first episode. Peoples faces and innards melting in front of the eyes of "the state" as they say "nothing to see here".....

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 8th 2019, 2:58 pm

kingstonlake wrote:Pretty good first episode. Peoples faces and innards melting in front of the eyes of "the state" as they say "nothing to see here".....

That reactor tech chose poorly. He should have taken a bullet to the head for refusing to go up on the roof vs. melting from the inside out.

by **kingstonlake** May 8th 2019, 3:02 pm

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:
kingstonlake wrote:Pretty good first episode. Peoples faces and innards melting in front of the eyes of "the state" as they say "nothing to see here".....

That reactor tech chose poorly. He should have taken a bullet to the head for refusing to go up on the roof vs. melting from the inside out.

Yeah, less painful....

by **Floyd Robertson** May 8th 2019, 3:14 pm

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:
kingstonlake wrote:Pretty good first episode. Peoples faces and innards melting in front of the eyes of "the state" as they say "nothing to see here".....

That reactor tech chose poorly. He should have taken a bullet to the head for refusing to go up on the roof vs. melting from the inside out.

IDK, a bullet to the head is so final.

Who wouldn't want to experience the feeling their insides turning into borscht?

by **Death Roe** May 8th 2019, 4:22 pm

Spoiler alert?!??

by **Nordic** May 8th 2019, 5:45 pm

Death Roe wrote:Spoiler alert?!??

The nuke plant catches on fire

by **Other Teams Pursuing That** May 8th 2019, 6:07 pm

Nordic wrote:
Death Roe wrote:Spoiler alert?!??

The nuke plant catches on fire

by aualum06 May 8th 2019, 6:13 pm

Death Roe wrote:Spoiler alert?!??

The nuke plant catches on fire

by Clarett's Folly May 10th 2019, 11:17 pm

Like everything on this show has cancer. Even the cancer has cancer.

by **Nordic** May 10th 2019, 11:36 pm

Clarett's Folly wrote:Like everything on this show has cancer. Even the cancer has cancer.

Lol

Re-watched E1 yesterday. Just as good or better the 2nd time around.

by **Other Teams Pursuing That** May 11th 2019, 12:39 am

That was excellent tv.

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 11th 2019, 9:20 am

When you receive a lethal dose of radiation this is what happens. You body is constantly reproducing your cells. They have a pretty short lifecycle. When enough radiation damages enough cells in your body it doesn't have enough healthy cells left to replace the old cells.

From that point you're a walking g-host. You're just waiting for your internal organs to break down. Your best option is a bullet to the head because there is only unimaginable agony left for your last couple weeks alive.

by **kingstonlake** May 11th 2019, 11:51 am

It's hard to consume how dangerous the area is. I read the core area is basically poison for 20,000 years. Workers clearing the roof were only allowed to spend 15 minutes at a time clearing debris. Men between the ages of 20-30 were used for clean up and they were sewing their own lead suits for protection. Something like 200,000 people have some form of disability from working at the site over the years.

by **StylesGShmooth** May 12th 2019, 12:39 am

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:
kingstonlake wrote:Pretty good first episode. Peoples faces and innards melting in front of the eyes of "the state" as they say "nothing to see here".....

That reactor tech chose poorly. He should have taken a bullet to the head for refusing to go up on the roof vs. melting from the inside out.

Can't believe he backed down on that. Once I did the radiation scan I would've swung by the office to give them the report on my way out of town as a courtesy. But Deuces, I'm out.

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 13th 2019, 10:58 pm

That helicopter crash actually happened.

by **Other Teams Pursuing That** May 14th 2019, 12:51 am

This show is fucking fantastic. Unreal.

by **StylesGShmooth** May 14th 2019, 6:38 pm

Don't know how much 400 rubles was back then or now, but I'd have slapped the shit out of both of them for even forming up their lips to say something as ridiculous as that offer.

How about nobody in my family ever works again and the state pays for my funeral?

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 14th 2019, 6:42 pm

StylesGShmooth wrote:Don't know how much 400 rubles was back then or now, but I'd have slapped the shit out of both of them for even forming up their lips to say something as ridiculous as that offer.

How about nobody in my family ever works again and the state pays for my funeral?

$6.16 in today's dollars.

by Clarett's Folly May 14th 2019, 7:15 pm

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:
StylesGShmooth wrote:Don't know how much 400 rubles was back then or now, but I'd have slapped the shit out of both of them for even forming up their lips to say something as ridiculous as that offer.

How about nobody in my family ever works again and the state pays for my funeral?

$6.16 in today's dollars.

Holy fuck, this isn't a joke. What a laughable fucking offer.

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 14th 2019, 7:29 pm

Clarett's Folly wrote:
Watch Out Pylon! wrote:

$6.16 in today's dollars.

Holy fuck, this isn't a joke. What a laughable fucking offer.

Also, i don't know if it was intentional or not, but it looked like the two head guys in charge of everything were sharing a hotel room... in an abandoned city. Russia was cheap as fuck.

by **kingstonlake** May 14th 2019, 8:24 pm

"Before you were deputy secretary you worked in a shoe factory"........

by **pulling69** May 14th 2019, 9:25 pm

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:
StylesGShmooth wrote:Don't know how much 400 rubles was back then or now, but I'd have slapped the shit out of both of them for even forming up their lips to say something as ridiculous as that offer.

How about nobody in my family ever works again and the state pays for my funeral?

$6.16 in today's dollars.

100 rubbles was $75 at the time. Corrected for inflation that is about $175 today. So they were offering those dudes $700 cash money, that was actually a lot of rubles at the time in the USSR.

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 15th 2019, 8:47 am

by **kingstonlake** May 15th 2019, 1:37 pm

"I'm told the radiation readings were only 3.6 roentgens per second, nothing more than a chest x-ray."

"Actually, no it's not the equivalent of one chest x-ray. It's the equivalent of 400......"

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 15th 2019, 2:00 pm

kingstonlake wrote:"I'm told the radiation readings were only 3.6 roentgens per second, nothing more than a chest x-ray."

"Actually, no it's not the equivalent of one chest x-ray. It's the equivalent of 400......"

And what did that officer say the reading was from his high end counter? 15,000? So, 1,666,667 x-rays?

by **kingstonlake** May 15th 2019, 2:09 pm

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:
kingstonlake wrote:"I'm told the radiation readings were only 3.6 roentgens per second, nothing more than a chest x-ray."

"Actually, no it's not the equivalent of one chest x-ray. It's the equivalent of 400......"

And what did that officer say the reading was from his high end counter? 15,000? So, 1,666,667 x-rays?

Yup 15,000. I'm gonna take it for granted the mini series is fairly accurate. The time crunch they had to empty the tanks before they had Armageddon on their hands was incredible. They basically had 48-72 hours before most of Russia was uninhabitable. All the other reactors were going to blow. It was chilling how the one dude had to asked Gorbachev for "permission to kill 3 people". Since they'd be dead after draining the tanks.

by **Nordic** May 15th 2019, 2:27 pm

In the TIL from this miniseries, if someone says "you will be rewarded" in Russia, it means your gonna die.

by **pulling69** May 15th 2019, 10:42 pm

kingstonlake wrote:
Watch Out Pylon! wrote:

And what did that officer say the reading was from his high end counter? 15,000? So, 1,666,667 x-rays?

Yup 15,000. I'm gonna take it for granted the mini series is fairly accurate. The time crunch they had to empty the tanks before they had Armageddon on their hands was incredible. They basically had 48-72 hours before most of Russia was uninhabitable. All the other reactors were going to blow. It was chilling how the one dude had to asked Gorbachev for "permission to kill 3 people". Since they'd be dead after draining the tanks.

And ironically 2 of those dudes are still alive, the third died a few years ago.

by **kingstonlake** May 15th 2019, 11:10 pm

pulling69 wrote:
kingstonlake wrote:

Yup 15,000. I'm gonna take it for granted the mini series is fairly accurate. The time crunch they had to empty the tanks before they had Armageddon on their hands was incredible. They basically had 48-72 hours before most of Russia was uninhabitable. All the other reactors were going to blow. It was chilling how the one dude had to asked Gorbachev for "permission to kill 3 people". Since they'd be dead after draining the tanks.

And ironically 2 of those dudes are still alive, the third died a few years ago.

I was wondering if they were alive. Good for them.

by **Nordic** May 15th 2019, 11:32 pm

Rewatching E2. Why do they always gotta show the dogs being left behind!?! Gets me every time.

by **pulling69** May 15th 2019, 11:45 pm

Nordic wrote:Rewatching E2. Why do they always gotta show the dogs being left behind!?! Gets me every time.

You want the feels? After the people were forced to leave ALL their pets the army and police had go and kill all of them and bury them in pits due to the radiation. One of the guys that had to do it said something like "it was the hardest thing I had to do because the dogs made it so easy. They missed their people and just walked up to us and stood there."

by **Floyd Robertson** May 16th 2019, 8:38 pm

This is seriously the scariest shit that has ever happened on this planet. If you want to argue that the Holocaust was scarier, I won't stop you, but that's a different kind of scary to me.

I see people, supposed experts, advocating for the proliferation of nuclear energy all the time on Twitter. Scares the everloving fuck out me.

Sure, nuclear plants are safe they say.

ps. OTPT was right, This is great television.

by **Watch Out Pylon!** May 20th 2019, 11:52 pm

Wow, the makeup department earned their money this episode. Those victims in the late stages of ARS looked fucking gruesome.

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