I was still a kid when Chernobyl happened, but I clearly remember not being allowed to play outside, an outside birdcage where probably 100 birds fell dead, not being allowed to eat crops that grew above ground. And that was in Belgium 1150 miles from Chernobyl

This is one of the most terrifying shows I've ever seen and it's a masterpiece. Can't wait to see what you think!

As Ukrainian, I was hooked from the first scene with Legasov. Because in his flat (and the at Ignatenkos) I saw couple of things that I owned, and a couple more I saw when I was visiting. Nailed it indeed.

08:48 The guy who held the door is still alive. The door shielded him. He got sooooo sick and nearly died, but ultimately he survived. 12:44 This level of radiation was simply never planned for. There are no suits designed to withstand this much, not for long. Their DNA was being shredded on a massive scale. 17:49 Even at this level, radiation does not kill that fast.

The thing is, initially thinking "there's no way the core exploded" is actually rational. At least until you take a look and see that the core is gone. For a nuclear reactor to explode (rather than to just melt down) you need to have a very specific sequence of very unlikely events happen in a very precise manner. The odds of this happening are maybe a million to one. But on this night, at this place, every single thing needed for the core to explode happened, against all odds. So again, their initial reactions -- "how can the core explode" -- was rational. But the moment it became clear that the core had, in fact, exploded, there was no excuse at all for still doubting it.

The guys in the control room and bunker were working backwards from the default "Core cannot explode". This was what they were all taught, it was impossible for an RBMK reactor to explode because to the soviet Union, nuclear power was the future and wanted nothing to hinder building towards their design. Chernobyl was slated to have up to ten reactors when finally completed. Reactors five and six were being built the night of the explosion.

'3.6 not great not terrible' is a quote that runs through my head because of the sheer horror of those words.... because they had no meter that actually read as high as it was at the time, experts have estimated it to have been over 20,000 r/h. Ten years later it was still at 10,000 under the structure they built to contain it. Its actually insane to think about.

For context, a chest xray is around 0.01 rem roughly speaking, so you understand why the guy said that background rem of 3.6 wasn't great. Continuous exposure to 3.6 is "ok" for an hour, hour and a half tops before permanent damage can start to kick in.

As I recall, the show will answer your questions as it moves on. I was seven when it happened. I remember there was something on the news in Norway about fallout potentially spreading to the country, affecting farm animals that were out on pasture and crops. Things already felt kind of scary, with the cold war going on and people talking about acid rain

FWIW, it wasn't in Russia. It was in Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union, while Russia was another (and the dominant) part.

This is among the best and most horrifying series ever made. I'm super here for this. But yeah, there will be some rough episodes. The subject is pretty unkind.

It's a good show. They nailed the look and feel of the Soviet Union. In some places it's very close to actual events and in other places it's completely fictional.

After bingeing all the first time movie reactions I must admit I adore you two and your content! So wholesome and entertaining! Though I am beginning to suspect maybe the Mrs Google's the plot beforehand? 😂 She seems so on point with so many of her observations and theories!

The sound design and score on this show is so good. It just ratchets up the fear and anxiety and makes you feel like you are there.

I love horror movies and scary TV shows and have seen many over the years. This series is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen and certain parts stayed with me for a long time after. I've never watched it since but look forward to seeing it again with you guys. A masterpiece.

I worked there as a volunteer for 12 years in special-needs orphanages trying to better the lives of children who were victims of this devastating accident. To this day the after effects, economic and social, are still being felt.

1:05 Correction: It happened in Ukraine, not russia. Both countries members of the Soviet Union at the time, though.

Ooh I'm so excited that you've started this. One of my favorite mini series ever. Amazing show.

The actor Paul Ritter, who plays Dyatlov, passed away last April..

My dad, rest his soul, had friends from Pripyat

This is definitely a series you watch and will never forget....but never want to see again.

Remember our teachers talked about this in school when it happened. I was a few countries over to the west and our sensors went off pretty early.

The radiation traveled across Northern Europe and a sizable amount of fallout settled here in Scotland. In some areas the radiation levels were so high the farms were banned from selling livestock due to contamination. I think there are still remote areas today where the ban is still in place.

I was a teenager in Germany when that happened, it was the most horrifying thing I have ever "felt" in my lifetime.

Thank you very much for reacting to this brilliant miniseries which is a joint SKY/HBO co-production. I'm old enough to have lived through the period of Chernobyl, I was at a University in South East England, one thing to remember is that all the very high speed information networks that we take for granted didn't exist back in 1986, the world wide web didn't exist there was basic internet email and USENET text based newsgroups only. The only sources of information were the TV news and what was printed in Newspapers, being in an University did have a sort of advantage in that people could ask the Physics department for their opinions on what could be going on and possible worse case scenarios!

Episode 1: Puking and Dying Episode 2: What Do I Know? I'm Just a Nuclear Physicist Episode 3: We Need a Big Ass Hole Episode 4: Old Yeller episode 5: A Tragedy of This Magnitude Must Be Somebody's Fault

I have not started the video yet, but I just wanted to say YESSSS :) so glad you're watching one of the bestmade series ever. Get ready for tears, both of you...

My family had to evacuate kiev, Ukraine because we lived about 90 miles away from Chernobyl. My father will not watch this TV series since it reminds him of this event and brings back bad memories.

"A bunch of them will be glowing soon." Too true.

Hello! Thanks for your videos! I'm from Ukraine (a country that was part of the USSR where Chernobyl is located) and it's very interesting to see what people in the West think about this incident and about this movie. I visited Chernobyl and Pripyat once (there've been regular tours for a long time), and I was really interested in the history of the incident, so I was digging all the information I could find about it (including all that I could learn from the guide in that tour). So here are a few comments of my own about the first episode: 1. Legasov was a renowned academician in USSR, and he didn't live in a poor apartment like it's shown here, he lived in a quite luxurious private house. 2. Dyatlov was definitely not the arrogant and delusional type like it's shown in the movie. Yes, he was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but they essentially just found a scapegoat. Maybe he was partially guilty, but he was not guilty that much. 3. Everyone understood that the core exploded fairly quickly, there was no such long and complete denial among the personnel (there was a bit of delay before the officials came to full realization, which is why Pripyat was not evacuated immediately). What was a mystery for quite a long time is why it exploded in the first place. It was true that all the plant personnel was taught that a nuclear plant is completely safe and the worst thing that could happen is a meltdown because of overheating, which can be contained easily. Only those among the designers of this type of nuclear reactor knew of its hazards but it was considered that the circumstances in which this hazard can occur are too unlikely. 4. The effects of radiation were truly horrible, but they didn't occur that fast. They sped it up about 10 times for dramatic purposes. 5. The old guy who told everyone to seal the town and cut the phone lines, or the big boss ordering someone to go to the reactor roof and threatening him with an armed guard is complete fiction. In fact, in the 1980s there were no people like this in the USSR among... well, decision-makers. This was not Stalin's era anymore, and the country was very different.

“How do you stop it?” Well, it’s still a issue to this day. And probably for many centuries to come.

Just found your channel and I love your reaction to Chernobyl, can't wait for more. It tells events of it mostly accurate but also sometimes changes somethings for dramatic purposes. - Nuclear reactors do not explode, not just RBMK but all of them just don't explode. So operators acted believing that the core is intact, and just could not believe that it exploded - that was unthinkable. That's why everyone deny it. - Diatlov was done dirty in this series, he wasn't a villain, he was also a victim. He was strict but not tyrannical, he had huge respect among his coworkers, he knew his job. But yes, his actions and bad decisions against safety protocols led to this disaster. After the explosion, he as almost anyone there denied the truth, but he acted in the best interest. He was the first to go to see if everybody is ok, to see fires, he led firefighters to the fires and hydrants, and even led the search for Khodemchuk. He also told staff to go home to save them form more exposure (people in control room were mostly shielded). He was not a bad guy, he had no idea what could happen that night, he had no clue about the fatal flow of the RBMK reactor. Noone know how badly this reactor was design. He was the last chain in the chain of the disaster, if it was not him, disaster would happen somewhere else in simmilar way. You can watch interviews with him on YT with english subtitles. - Sitnikov was not forced to go on the roof to look into the reactor, but after Diatlov collapsed he decided to go himself check it so the proper actions could be taken. - The scene at the brigde in first episode didn't happen in reality. Noone really come to it to watch fire. Noone died from it, people were sleeping and then woke up and went to work like nothing happen without even knowing that there was a fire in the power plant. It is a myth. However the wind was blowing straight into the brigde so it was extremely radioactive - that brigde was one of the most dangerous places around power plant, and had to be used constantly to transport poeple and materials. - 3.6 Roentgens per hour desimeter reading is significant, but not terrible. But it's hard to calculate dose absorbed by human body and health consequences as it's dependent on type of radietion (alfa, beta, gamma or neutron) and exposure time. To simplify 3.6R/h is 36 mSv/h, and to compare, you recieve 10-30 mSv form single full-body CT scan, 50 mSv is maximum annual dose permitted for radiation workers. Symptoms of radiation sickness show up when you're exposed to levels of more than 500 mSv (0.5 Sv). More than 4 to 5 Sv is likely to be fatal in 50% cases if the dose is received over a very short duration. So 36 mSv in an hour is not too serious of a damage. 36 mSv in an hour for hours or days are going to be very concerning. But of course that was just as high as the meter could measure, the true reading was much higher. - Radiations kills slowly, it may even take hours or days for the first effects of radiation poisoning to occur, weeks before death comes. Vomiting and nausea are one of the first symptoms of acute radiation poisoning. Tasing metal is a sign of high radiations exposure - it destroys your taste buds causing that taste to be felt. Radiation in close proximity to reactor 4 was so huge that symptoms showed up very quickly. - That guy holding the door to the reactor survived it.

What happened at Chernobyl almost happened at Three Mile Island in the U.S.A., in the late 1970s / early 80s. As it was, the U.S. incident was disastrous without even exploding.

This happened when I was in high school. It was a defining event of my era, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. Crazy times. It seemed every year was a fresh bookmark in history.

I remember when this happened. This was pretty accurate of the world's reaction. I remember it as: World: Hey, Soviets, why is Ukraine glowing? USSR: Wuh...What? Naw... World: You fucked up, didn't you? USSR: Nyet, Comrade... sigh... yes we fucked up...

by far the scariest piece of media i have ever consumed

I watched this once when it was initially released on HBO. I haven’t been able to rewatch since and it still haunts me. I will watch again through your reaction and feel less alone.

"Cut the phone lines. Contain the spread of misinformation." Sounds familiar.

I know someone who walked around with a piece of radioactive metal in his pocket. When he was told he probably sterilised himself he starting laughing hysterically and said "Chernoballs!"

From the wiki. The ionizing radiation levels in the worst-hit areas of the reactor building have been estimated to be 5.6 roentgens per second (R/s), equivalent to more than 20,000 roentgens per hour. A lethal dose is around 500 roentgens (~5 Gray (Gy) in modern radiation units) over five hours, so in some areas, unprotected workers received fatal doses in less than a minute.

I’m so happy you’re watching this show. It’s a rough one bc they tried to be as accurate as they could for the show. They wanted to honor the people that went through it and who are still suffering to this day. On a lighter note, most (if not all) the music is actually sounds from a nuclear reactor they recorded. That’s one of my favorite things they did for the show. I can’t wait to see the next episode with you guys!

This is one of the BEST miniseries I have ever seen. It is absolutely amazing and I am really looking forward to watching this with you guys!

Love your reactions. I always keep an eye out for new uploads on your channel 👍👍

Wonderful video

I was a teen in Australia. I remember the news reports of the radioactive cloud spreading westward over Europe. For ten years my family stopped eating food and drink imported from Europe. That mainly meant giving up a French mustard, a favourite type of marmalade and chutney, and a really cool Italian soft drink I forget the name of now. I was REALLY grateful I lived down in the Southern hemisphere. Even now in some of the northern European countries its not safe to eat mushrooms or wild pigs/boar that grow there. I think this is the best TV show ever made. Its tough to watch, but an essential story. both of human suffering, bravery and resolve, and for the critical lesson about the danger of lies. Also hang in there: Epiode 5 is like a reward for getting through the first 4 episodes.

That was horryfing. My mom was a teenager living in Poland but she told me about that. How much lies had been told. How she got sick not long after. It's scary how much it still scares people.

They couldn’t believe the core exploded. It was too much to comprehend that it could even happen. There was so much denial going on.

i still know that we kids had to stay at home and couldn`t play outside for a few days. and i live in germany.... in school we made some drills to get to the fallout shelter under our school building, just in case it got worse. in some regions of germany, it is still not safe to eat wild mushrooms or meat from wild hogs till this very day.

This is a tough series guys! But lots to learn, and amazingly done! Looking forward to all the episodes!

"The Cherenkoff effect..." Is impossible. For the Cherenkoff effect to occur in the atmosphere it would have to be from cosmic rays. Dyatlov should know that.

Glad you guys are watching this! You should check out the original The Stand made for TV series some time.

I went to Pripyat several years ago and walked around parts of the deserted city, a sobering experience.

Thank you Mrs. and Mr. for covering this show. I loved it when I saw it, and I hope you do too!

The sequence with the open, blazing core is and remains one of the most horrifying, sickening pieces of movie I have ever seen. Real-world, eldritch horror.

I watched this show right when it came out. I recently took a job in the nuclear industry so it’s a whole different meaning for me.

Oh joy, another series that just makes me cry over and over.

im from Poland and my parents remember that disaster. They told me that they had to drink fluid called Lugola to saturate thyroid with lets say good iodine to prevent it from absorbing radioactive iodine. Clothes of firemans are still laying in basement of hospital in Pripyat and they are very very very radioactive today

So pumped that you two are reacting to this. It’s *absolutely* one of the best miniseries of the last twenty years.

it's pretty neat watching someone that has no real idea of what happened see this for the first time. i'd spent so much time reading about it over the years that i found the show very interesting for different reasons - mostly accuracy and what they chose to focus on. looking forward to watching the rest of your uploads on this.

Very glad you guys are doing this. A masterpiece that deserves to be watched by as many as possible.

Amazing, harrowing TV. And you get to see human beings at their best and worst and the grey bits in between. I remember that time very well.

I was born in Germany 82 and remember my mom telling me not play in the "sour" rain.

I was 15 years old when the explosion at Chernobyl happened and it was scary enough then but, after watching this series, I realized that I was not scared enough. I also read a book that was published at the same time the series came, Manual For Survival by Kate Brown, and is about what happened at Chernobyl and it is very detailed. The book also goes into detail about some of the same mistakes made in Chernobyl were made at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan after the earthquake there in 2011. Very sobering thought. And no one is allowed to live anywhere around Chernobyl; the radiation is still too high.

The acting and chemistry between Skarsgard and Harris is spectacular.

such a great docu-series. happy to see you reacting to it.

finished it last night it was pretty good. i don't usually notice soundtracks, but once an episode they have a really good instrumental section that moves slowly

I’ve only seen the series thru reaction videos like yours. I can’t get enough of watching it.

this show is a masterpiece. horrifying story, amazing directing throughout, great acting, great script. the tension in this show is unsettling and what's crazy is, keep in mind, the creator of this show, the writer came from the hangover movies, the Scary movies's and identity theft. huge surprising turn for him from this show.

That bridge is now know as the BRIDGE OF DEATH

YESSS!!!! I love this mini series. You’re gonna love it.👍🏻

Things like this have terrified the crap out of me all my life. My great uncle died at Oak Ridge fixing the ventilation shafts back before they ever had a clue what radiation poisoning did to a human. Hearing the description from my great aunt was the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life or ever heard someone else have to recount. Disasters like this and the way they capture it between the horrors people lived through and the in this case especially, the lengths governments will go to to cover up what happened is even more horrifying. To this day if you talk about Chernobyl in the wrong way to people in the area or even say the name Pripyat, you'll be lucky if all they do is shun you til you leave the area. It is still a very sore open wound. I have nothing but respect for anyone who had to go through these horrendous events.

I love that the only time we see the explosion is from miles away and is only initially felt as a shockwave hitting the homes of those most affected by it. The story of Chernobyl isn’t about a power plant exploding, it’s about the cost of human life being paid for with lies.

I'm really excited to watch you guys react to this series! It's one of the best

When I saw your channel and Chernobyl in the title my first thought was "on boy....they are in for it now".

This is such a great series and shows so many aspects of cold war Soviet Union.. When this happened I was a young Ham radio operator & would talk to other radio ops in the Soviet Union when conditions were right. They were very secretive as all their comms were monitored & all came from specific radio club locations,. They only gave their name, city, weather & equipment they used. comms were short & to the point but polite.

'86 was a tough year. The Challenger exploded, Chernobyl, Halley's Comet reminded me I'd be dead when next it comes around, Hands across America but not in my neighborhood and Oprah got a talk show. Pretty much a suckfest all year.

Fomin states he is a nuclear engineer like Sitnikov who he sent to the roof, not strictly true, he got his certification by a correspondence course whereas Sitnikov was professionally qualified.

Mr & Mrs TV have been hitting home runs with the selection of tv shows. I'm in 100%!! Sopranos + Chernobyl = high drama & fascinating content for a must watch reaction. Chernobyl is gut wrenching and sad at times. It elicits overwhelming anger at incompetent choices, then provides beautiful examples of the robustness of the enduring human spirit in the worst circumstances. You two are in for a ride with this one!

As heart wrenching and horrifying as this series can be, there's both a beauty and meta gallows humor to the whole thing that I haven't seen done well in any media since Dr. Strangelove.

This is such a well done mini series. So terrifying..... But so damn well done.

"not great not terrible" best meme from Chernobyl

Great mini series y'all will love it!

the scene with the forest is to show how the radiation turned the leafs from green to red, interestingly enough, now days that place is known as "Red Forest" for is forever red and even scarier, glows red in the night.

I still can remember the day as a kid here in germany were I was not allowed to go outside because of Chernobyl.

I imagine she’s one of those people who says “That really happened?” A lot.

As a son of a liquidator from Ukraine, and fan of Chornobyl TV, and subscriber to your channel, this is a treat.

"I know that it was some sort of nuclear power plant malfunction... in a foreign country." "Yeah. In Russia." *[SCREAMS INTERNALLY]*

7:20 imagine breathing in, and saying "i taste metal",... scary scenario to say the least. amazing mini series, i've seen it 3 times so far! i'm glad you two are having a chance to watch it!

For the level of radiation. They would have had to get it down to below 500 milliroentgen, so below 0.5 roentgen, but with EVERYTHING being radioactive now; it’s not possible

This maybe the best television drama. I’ve never re-watched it and never will.

8:43 not even touching the door, those men were dead even before they got to the door

I hope you understand that HBO took lots of liberties with the script. No one could tell for certain that night that the reactor exploded. It was only in the following afternoon when they flew over the plant in a helicopter it was established that the reactor exploded.

I'm an American and I lived in Bremen Germany during the 80's. When this happened, my family and I were stationed in Bremerhaven Germany. I was very young (about 4 or 5) and I very much remember that for more than a couple of months, we were not to go outside during certain times during the day as well as that we were not to play on the playgrounds or on certain surfaces like the grass or the sand at various times of the day. I can remember being very afraid of sand and grass afterword because I had been told that it was "unsafe" but because I was a small child I didn't understand why, so I had an inherent, temporary paranoia of grass, pavement and playgrounds for a little while, lol

Omg so glad you guys are watching!!

My mom was 8th month pregnant with me when this happened. It was 500km away. She said they were not told how dangerous it was for a very long time. Having immunological and thyroid problems my whole life. How releted it is considering the distance and directrion (West, slightly north-west) I will never know.

this contaminated most of northern Europe, and the Russia people didn't even know about Chernobyl accident. I was 16 when this happened living in the UK and it was scary , a lot of land here was contaminated .

I think I was in high school when this happened. Like most high schoolers, I didn't care much about world news, but everyone heard about this. We didn't get many details, but we knew it was important. This show is riveting because you can't believe what's happening scientifically and politically at every turn. Great choice for a reaction!

This is going to be a wild ride...

Chernoby is not a situation stopped, it's a situation contained. Oh and the containment have started to deteriorate.

At its heart this show is about long term, habitual cover-ups leading to ignorance that anything could go wrong (and thus mistakes which led to the disaster in the first place). This ignorance was so entrenched it resulted in wilful denial of the facts on the ground and self-delusion, then followed up by desperate attempts to deny the extent of the disaster and avoid an fault, both from individuals, Soviet departments, the government and in the end the entire Soviet nation. However, the extent of the Chernobyl disaster meant these cover-ups were largely futile, the reality could not be denied.