Chernobyl a Miniseries Between “Reality” and “Television”

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Chernobyl a Miniseries Between “Reality” and “Television”

Chernobyl (HBO – SKY, 2019) is a miniseries inspired by the real fact (or, rather to say, by the huge amount of historical, journalistic, administrative and scientific documents available on the subject) and also, in part, by the book Prayer for Chernoby by Svetlana Aleksievic. Miniseries are one of the most popular formats in current television production. They are characterised by a closure at the end of the planned episodes and are therefore also called limited series.

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Chernobyl Miniseries Polarizations: Good/Bad, Rational/Emotional

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Chernobyl Miniseries Polarizations: Good/Bad, Rational/Emotional

Plots in Television series are often based on polarizations, in other words, on binary oppositions, which are extremely simple to follow. The miniseries Chernobyl brings into play a distinct clash between good and evil. The main opposition spectators are faced with is an ethical one, between the good guys, the scientists Valery Legasov and Ulana Khomyuk, who heroically try to limit the damage of the disaster, and the bad guys, the technicians of the nuclear plant Anatoly Dyatlov, Viktor Bryukhanov and Nicolai Fomian, who due to their incompetence and arrogance are the cause of the accident. Amongst the bad guys, various institutions can be placed like the government and the KGB, which have hidden and are still continuing to hide the deplorable mistakes made in the plant construction.

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Remembering (and Refiguring) Chernobyl: What Can be Learned from the HBO (2019) Series?

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Remembering (and Refiguring) Chernobyl: What Can be Learned from the HBO (2019) Series?

The premiere of Chernobyl (HBO-SKY, 2019) recalled the greatest man-made catastrophe in human history and the enormous damage on both living beings and the environment. This "historical drama" —as the critics labelled the miniseries— made nuclear disasters the focus of public attention once again, after being overshadowed in the last two decades by the increasing dramatization of other risks such as climate change. This article launches a Pop Junctions series that unpacks a range of dimensions related to the series Chernobyl.

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