Chernobyl

that's some north korea level of petty

It's amazing how some shows just come out of left field.

And who cares what Mazins political views are? Have you listened to the podcasts? He is actually a very intelligent dude, and is very passionate about his work.

Chernobyl did two things with an incredible amount of success.

Firstly, they captured the "mood". You were instantly sucked into the atmosphere of the show, the lack of dramatic music, the brooding feel, the matted Soviet palette, it all created an authentic setting that immediately captured the audience.

Second, they didnt waste much screen time at all. The only 12 minutes or so of the entire 5 hours that could have been used elsewhere was the excessive time given to Pavel shooting dogs.

Other than that almost everything they put on screen was relevant and true to its origin. The cinematography, the writing, direction and acting was all equally impressive. Probably a top 3 TV show of all time, even it only being 5 episodes.

The Wire number 1, Game of Thrones was number 2, but sadly has fallen off a cliff, so it would either be this show or Breaking Bad next.

Jozu said:

It's amazing how some shows just come out of left field.

And who cares what Mazins political views are? Have you listened to the podcasts? He is actually a very intelligent dude, and is very passionate about his work.

Chernobyl did two things with an incredible amount of success.

Firstly, they captured the "mood". You were instantly sucked into the atmosphere of the show, the lack of dramatic music, the brooding feel, the matted Soviet palette, it all created an authentic setting that immediately captured the audience.

Second, they didnt waste much screen time at all. The only 12 minutes or so of the entire 5 hours that could have been used elsewhere was the excessive time given to Pavel shooting dogs.

Other than that almost everything they put on screen was relevant and true to its origin. The cinematography, the writing, direction and acting was all equally impressive. Probably a top 3 TV show of all time, even it only being 5 episodes.

The Wire number 1, Game of Thrones was number 2, but sadly has fallen off a cliff, so it would either be this show or Breaking Bad next.

Click to expand...

Game of Thrones was never number two worthy, lol.

Chernobyl was good but I wouldn't put it as a top 3 show. Yeah it's a gripping story but that's mostly down to the facts of the incident itself, I would always give original stories like Breaking Bad far more credit. Same with GOT, it's an adaptation of someone else's story and in places not a particularly good one.

Chernobyl also became less gripping/tense as the series progressed. Also at certain points it was easy to spot the scenes which were included solely for the benefit of the audience; "tell me how a nuclear reactor works"

Ossoi said:

Chernobyl was good but I wouldn't put it as a top 3 show.

Click to expand...

You can't really lump it with the regular run series. It's a mini-series, like Band of Brothers or The Pacific.

BrutulTM said:

I don't give a shit if it's "harsh" or "biased". I want to know if it's accurate. The numbers I've heard in the past about Chernobyl were more like what the article said than what the show portrayed it as.

Click to expand...

It's extremely difficult to tell, since most radiation exposure short of ARS simply increases the risk of cancer. How much of that is due to radiation vs what would naturally occur can only be told by comparative surveys of populations. But the problem with that is you introduce a shit ton of other variables whenever you compare different populations. Everything from Ethnicity, altitude, primary occupation in the area, diet ect can radically affect cancer rates over time.

We just don't know because radiations effects are small but there are many of them..its the same reason why were so far behind on genetics and so confused about race, ethnicity and other population differences. Because genetic effects are from many sources, each with tiny effects. So when you do a little damage to certain sources of many, the complexity as it goes "up the chain" of cell division/command becomes mind bogglingly complex.

So based on the last episode, unless I don't get it, the RBMK reactors were technically safe IF procedures were followed. Had they decided to abandon the test when power in the reactor went to zero (instead of removing all the control rods), it technically wouldn't have exploded.

Lying and not being completely upfront about the intricacies of the reactor is what caused the accident. Had Dyatlov known that the AZ5 button is not a true reset button for every occasion, it probably never would have happened.

Right, they basically indicated that the reactor was fine unless a specific set of circumstances were met, in which case you get what happened.

Yep, it was the inserting of like, ALL the control rods (tipped with graphite that gave it that burst of accelerated reaction) at one time during an already unstable state caused a surge on an ungodly level, thus boom boom.

nisser said:

So based on the last episode, unless I don't get it, the RBMK reactors were technically safe IF procedures were followed. Had they decided to abandon the test when power in the reactor went to zero (instead of removing all the control rods), it technically wouldn't have exploded.

Lying and not being completely upfront about the intricacies of the reactor is what caused the accident. Had Dyatlov known that the AZ5 button is not a true reset button for every occasion, it probably never would have happened.

Click to expand...

Basically from what I understand, the reactor was put in an unstable state before the test was even started. If the test never happens, it's quite possible the reactor is able to recover and there is no accident (at least not on the level of what happened). The test just made the situation worse, primary because many of the fail safes were bypassed as a result of the test. There is a lot of disagreement about the AZ-5 button, specifically when it was pressed. Some theories even suggest it wasn't manually pressed at all. But regardless, that button sent the reactor to it's doom by reinserting the graphite tipped rods and getting stuck halfway in.

Sure but I guess it helps me understand why they build the reactor in such a way. The Soviet scientists seemingly knew that there was a scenario under which it would blow up but just presumed that those sets of events would never occur. Having a cheaper reactor outweighed the risks. I think it's an important distinction because I always presumed that Chernobyl was a unique unforeseen accident. They miscalculated, and in large part due to the secrecy about every asset of life in that time.

Everything the Russians built was a piece of shit. The entire population wanted stuff made in the West (which you could buy on the black market). They stole half the designs for anything notable from the West and still managed to fuck whatever it was they were building up.

Financially they spent so much money chasing the US in the arms race and building armies that they never had a pot to piss in from 1950-1990.

Deutschland 86 is a good TV show concerning East/West Germany at the time (although it's fictional).

One thing that isnt really touched upon in the show was the hot spot in the bottom section of the reactor.

The same thing can happen in a conventional high pressure steam boiler. If I lose my feedwater, there is now no longer circulation in the boiler as well as the threat of a low water condition which leads to overheating in general. But the lack of circulation can cause heat stress in the furnace or front tube section, depending how long you dont have your feedpump running.

That hot spot combined with the rods being pulled, then reinserted after the reactor was scramed is what actually caused the steam explosion.

WHats insane is how fucking huge the reactor feedwater pumps are. Were I work we have 6 feedwater pumps for 4 boilers, 3 for each, 1 backup in each set. The pumps are about the size of a 55 gallon drum laying on its side, maybe a littler bigger. The pumps at Chernobyl were literally 2 plus stories tall and almost the size of a small building. We use about 40,000 gallons an hour of water, they must use MILLIONS of gallons per hour in that nuclear reactor.

Either way purposely shutting off your feedwater is fucking insane.