The persuasive effectiveness of the miniseries Chernobyl (HBO, 2019) comes from its documentary approach (Odin 2013). It is not just about historical accuracy in representing places and people, furnishings, clothing and technology in the fictional reconstruction of a narrative possible world (Eco 1979; Ryan 2014). The "figures" of death from invisible radiation are achieved through a sound design that remixes Geiger counters; the scenes of contaminated urban spaces and forests are based on iconographic sources from photo reports at the disaster site; characters and narrative situations (e.g., the death of the young firefighter) are created using investigative literature of interviews with survivors and their families as source texts. And after the fictional finale, Chernobyl goes on to feature a long documentary sequence, with photos and archive footage, that becomes an ethical and political commentary on the nuclear disaster and its management.