Viewers Flock To Ionized Airwaves

Michael Hedges June 16, 2019 Follow on Twitter

Television can still offer a surprise, rising above the reality shows, talk shows and all the rest that seem to be just like all the rest. Just when TV viewers were in the midst of post-Games of Thrones depression along came an unexpected spring-time reprieve. They had not all exited for Instagram and YouTube. They were ready to pounce.

The HBO/Sky mini-series Chernobyl premiered in the US and UK in the first weekend of May, the rest of the world following shortly thereafter. The series is based on Voice of Chernobyl and Chernobyl Prayer by Belarusian Nobel Laureate (2015) Svetlana Alexievich centered on the catastrophic series of events triggered by technical and human failures at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northeast Ukraine followed by an uncontrolled chain reaction, a nuclear meltdown. Add to that the air around the building was ionized, radioactive contamination spread with the winds. All of this was badly managed both at the facility site and in Moscow, where officials seemed concerned as much with the propaganda disaster.

IMDb (International Movie Data Base) declared (June 3) Chernobyl the “best TV series of all time,” surpassing Breaking Bad. You know it’s a hit when scores of Gen X “influencers” streamed into the still-barren town of Pripyat in northeastern Ukraine to take selfies in the real place, near the abandoned buildings, houses and cars, not to forget the rusty ferris wheel in the children’s amusement park. “Please remember that a terrible tragedy occurred there,” said writer/creator Craig Mazin, quoted by CNN (June 13). “Comport yourselves with respect for all those who suffered and sacrificed.”

The series was filmed in Ukraine and Lithuania, which happens to have a decommissioned Soviet-era nuclear power plant. Swedish TV and music video director Johan Renck called the shots. He had previously directed three episodes of Breaking Bad as well as the video for David Bowie’s Blackstar. “The first episode leaves no doubt that this is not a series for sensitive viewers,” wrote Polish news portal Onet.pl (June 13).

Millennials born between 1980 and 2000 were largely spared from the real-life drama and horror that began in April 1986 unless they lived in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. “The news on state radio kept saying that there had been no significant increase in radiation, that there was no danger,” said Euronews Budapest manager Attila Kert (June 15), a teenager in Pecs, Hungary at the time. “And yet in subsequent weeks they would talk happily about how the radiation levels were decreasing. I realised it was part of the Communist propaganda.”

Ukrainian television channel 1+1 will broadcast the entire series - “with high-quality Ukrainian dubbing,” noted Telekritika (June 14) - over three days next week. As a preview, the channel will broadcast live from the “exclusion zone.” When a full-day broadcast was proposed “we could not but support this idea,” said 1+1 morning news producer Julia Zhmakina. “Now there is a huge wave of interest. We must not forget about this tragedy.”

Reviews from Russian media, including State broadcasters, have been reasonably positive. Documentary producer Oleg Voinov called it “wonderfully shot, professionally edited, and the special effects are great. But it doesn’t come close to reflecting reality.” Amedia’s streaming service Amediateka is offering Chernobyl in Russia and many of the former Soviet States through a distribution agreement with HBO. That included Game of Thrones.

Communist Party of Russia, now a mere figment of its own imagination, wants the HBO/Sky production banned in the Russian Federation and “public libel” charges brought against the producers, reported rambler.ru (June 13). Russian TV broadcaster NTV, owned by Gazprom Media, already has its version of the Chernobyl story in production in Belarus. Predictably, it blames the CIA.

The HBO/Sky series is a timely parable for todays consciousness. Craig Mazin intended a parable on the global war on truth and science. The story’s martyr - hero is inadequate - is the whistleblower calling the cover-up. Jared Harris’ character Valery Legasov asks: “Can we no long recognize the truth at all?” In the post-modern age parable, like irony, is a concept lost on critics, literary and otherwise. Drama rises to meet truth.

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