Binge Worthy: HBO's "Chernobyl"


In this series, I want to talk about television shows that are "binge worthy". These could be shows on television, streaming services, or even a YouTube series. Basically, anything that I found myself not being able to stop watching, and just wanting to power straight through. The first in this series is HBO's historical, limited run series, Chernobyl.

I have always been a fan of historical shows, and movies. One of my very favorite movies of all time would be the "Young Guns" movies (based on the life, and events of Billy the Kid, and the Wild West). So anytime I see a moment in history portrayed by actors, and actresses on the screen, I'm always happy to give them a chance, and see if I can't learn something in the process of being entertained. When I started seeing posts pop up on Facebook about a series detailing the Chernobyl disaster, I was immediately intrigued.

From the first episode, I watched in horror as a terrible moment in history was played out in front of me. From the earliest moments of the nuclear meltdown, to the trial, there wasn't a moment that I wasn't glued to the screen, wondering what would happen next. Usually later at night, in bed, where my girlfriend and I would fight our sleep.

If I'm being honest, I didn't really know much about the disaster, being very young when it actually happened. I have seen bad horror movies that elude to the disaster ("Chernobyl Diaries" being the most recent), but I never really knew details of the event. My basic knowledge boiled down to "stay the hell away from Chernobyl". Which, even in the hindsight of this series, still seems like really great advice.

I watched in horror as one mistake turned into one of the greatest human made disasters in history. I looked on in sickness as politicians, and rich men passed the blame to wherever they could, as countless people lost their lives in possibly the worst way imaginable. Nobody wanted to take the blame. Although, who could blame them? This was a really awful moment in human history. I find it horrifying to think that if something like this were to happen today, our politicians would do the same thing as they did then. But I guess that's a possible topic for a different blog.

The acting in the series was fantastic. I really enjoyed the job that these men, and women did portraying all of the men and women who were there when these events actually transpired. They really helped to bring more knowledge of this terribly tragic even to light. Something that I think was probably a good thing, as we would be doomed to repeat the past if we don't know more of it.

In my opinion, HBO, and the creator's of the show really did something great here. I can only hope that not only did we learn something from this event, but that the makers of HBO's Chernobyl make more of these limited series, as I found it to be very entertaining, and in the end, immensely sickening, and tragic.


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