Chernobyl Episode 1
Added 2025-06-12 16:00:12 +0000 UTCWelcome to the first episode of Chernobyl (a show that I 100% mispronounce until I hear someone say it in the show). Very excited to be diving into this and I can't wait to see how everything continues throughout the rest of the episodes.
Fun fact, there's a map in one of the Call of Duty games that has a ferris wheel and I believe 2 years ago I was informed that that was in fact a real place in Chernobyl :)
Comments
I took a guided tour to the exclusion zone years before the show came out. It was a fascinating experience seeing a city frozen in time and completely overtaken by nature. Outside the plant's fire station I saw a monument titled "To those who saved the world" and learned how close Europe and beyond came to an even greater disaster if not for the efforts of tens of thousands of people who helped contain it. The show did a great with the contrast between their sacrifice and the incompetence, deceit and cowardice of the ones who caused the disaster.
senfgurke
2025-06-18 22:32:40 +0000 UTC“Never felt so good about feeling so sick to my stomach” YES! I’ve never been so happy about being so sad
Gina
2025-06-13 17:22:33 +0000 UTC100% agreed! It felt like I was living it which was unfortunate but also excellent
Gina
2025-06-13 17:22:03 +0000 UTCI’m very excited to have a show that lets you sit with feelings for a while. Very excited to watch the next one!
Gina
2025-06-13 17:21:25 +0000 UTCWhat hits hardest is how no one believed the core could have exploded. The system was built on the assumption that it couldn’t happen, so when it did, denial kicked in hard. You really see how the Soviet culture of obedience over truth made things worse: engineers afraid to speak up, officials more worried about appearances than reality. What really stuck with me was the “Bridge of Death” scene. Families just standing there, watching the glowing reactor like it’s a fireworks show; completely unaware they were being showered with lethal radiation. And that’s the other layer to this: how little people, even first responders, understood about radiation. It’s invisible, silent, odorless, and deadly, and no one told them what they were walking into. You can feel the weight of that ignorance. Made worse by a government that was more afraid of embarrassment than catastrophe. It’s the slow, tragic unraveling of a system that prioritized control over truth, it’s a devastating reminder that technical systems don’t fail in isolation. They fail when communication breaks down, when leadership denies reality, and when people aren’t empowered to speak up.
Seeno Evils
2025-06-13 10:13:11 +0000 UTCAs a former nuclear reactor operator in the US navy, I love this documentary. I love nuclear power, but you have to respect it and fear it a little bit especially as someone like myself who operated a few in my lifetime and have done drills of this nature.
jastop94
2025-06-13 04:14:06 +0000 UTCWow I have never had a show just sit me with a sense of dread for a full hour. Such a good job with the characters to to show how all these different people react to being dead men walking. The scientists and directors choosing to live in denial mixed with the scenes of the innocent ignorant citizens they were condemning was just awful to watch. I never felt so good about feeling so sick to my stomach. Really excited to see the next episodes.
R McBean
2025-06-13 01:38:39 +0000 UTCgiven that this tragedy actually happened, i like that they took the whole first ep for the disaster only, showing the play by play every hour. i feel like it really gets going in ep 2, and then pacing picks up quite a bit
boxgrux
2025-06-13 01:18:14 +0000 UTCWhen I watched this I treated it more like a "documentary" than anything else which, like you said, makes the slow and steady pace of the show make sense. Things do speed up (I use that term lightly) as things go on but it mainly keeps a steady pace while delveing deeper into the disaster from multiple angles/perspectives. It does a great job at that.
Damon Shaw
2025-06-12 18:41:05 +0000 UTCOoh I’m glad you pointed this out because I didn’t fully notice. I saw the two years but didn’t think much of it
Gina
2025-06-12 18:29:58 +0000 UTCDon’t worry about not understanding everything that’s going on right now. They drop you in and don’t explain things until later.
Funkachute
2025-06-12 17:47:50 +0000 UTCThe only thing you might have missed or didn't comment on is that after cutting away from Lagasov at the start, it said "2 years and 1 minute earlier". Then 1 minute later the explosion happened. I thought him doing that on the 2 year anniversary, down to the minute, was impactful personally. I do feel he could've left his cat more food, though the KGB spy watching him will probably get to him soon
Kebobs
2025-06-12 17:40:50 +0000 UTC
