I didn't watch the series; but people say it's extremely inaccurate. I read historians' reaction. Most characters of the series are real historical personalities; many of them are shown as evil or incompetent, although in the real life they weren't.
I don't think that at all. A majority of the people portrayed were shown in an incredibly heroic light. From coal miners, to young soldiers, to the ideal personification of a soviet. Even the people who aren't shown as heroic are shown more as tragic. I didn't see anyone as evil. No one had malicious intentions.
But most of all, it's not a documentary and doesn't pretend to be. Everyone involved admits, without being asked, that they took liberties to make for a better story. If you watch it expecting a documentary, you'll be disappointed. If you watch it as a composite of all the different lives brought together that day and for months afterward, then it can be an amazing bit of story-telling.
I also read Voices from Chernobyl, and while I recognized some of the liberties taken for the sake of time constraints and a telling a story, I recognized a lot of the people from the books on the screen.
Where accuracy mattered, I think Mazin did his best to ensure it was accurate. Where the story needed to take preference, he wove in some fiction based on a real story.
I would like to watch it, but I don't have HBO and its too expensive to subscribe just for that. Maybe eventually it will be on some other service I do have.
I was a teenager in Germany when it happened. It was a confusing and scary time. I remember one of the things they told us not to sit on the grass. Among other advice.
It was a remarkably scary time. The Challenger had just exploded, tension between the US and USSR could be cut with a knife, and Gorbachev and Reagan hadn't yet established that odd relationship that shouldn't have worked on the surface. If I'm remembering the stories right, didn't Germany learn about it because of ground contamination from shoes?
As I watched it, I commented that it wasn't a tragedy, it was a horror story. Living through it, I never realized just how many times it could have gone even more pear-shaped.During the Vienna meeting downplayed just how bad it could have been. And the West portrayed it as caused by employees/staff who didn't have the education or training combined with inferior structures and regulations. When, in fact, it was a chain reaction of bad decisions that could have bee prevented if the USSR made it public that an RMYK reactor could explode under the right circumstances.
I'm sure it will hit one of the services sooner rather than later. However, you can get HBO Go for 30 days free, I say sign up, binge watch it, then cancel