An astonishing episode of television that completely captivated and infuriated Sam and me! Can't wait to watch this miniseries! Thank you for all the support!

"This music is freaking me out." The same year, the composer did the score for Joker, which got her an Oscar.

Ghosts, slashers, extra terrestrials don't scare me. THIS scares me.

Regarding the management's reactions: You have to put this in the context of the old Soviet Union. Although the USSR of the 1980s was very different from the old Stalinist days, state workers in jobs like these could still face severe consequences for screw-ups at their job. It was still a police state, and anyone could easily be stripped of their job, position and sent to Siberian labor camps or (worse) KGB prisons.

"I don't know what radiation poisoning does..." You will soon...

might be the best miniseries in the last decade, grueling but so good

Distance and time are the killers with radiation. Imagine a radiative source, like the graphite piece the firefighter picked up. The radiation is streaming out in all directions creating a spherical shape with the graphite at the center. The closer you get, the more radiation you receive per second. The only thing to do is to move away. It's like moving away from a light bulb, the light gets less intense as you get distance. However, length of exposure matters too. It's a constant stream of radiation. Distance will help, but if you keep getting exposed, the damage is cumulative. It just keeps getting worse and worse. You just have to get as far away as possible as quickly as you can.

The guy who propped open the radiation room door and had a smoke while water dripped down actually survived the radiation. He had a lot of surgery and had to wear bandages for several years, but he lived and even did a few documentaries about the event.

Special note for episode 2 (no spoiler): the dispatch calls/tones were the actual ones made the day of.

I was a kid in Germany when it happened, i don't remember but my parents told me, because of the radiation, we (the children) were all in quarantaine, we couldn't go out to the park to play, could go outside or eat many things.

The disaster portrayal in the first episode almost felt like an alien invasion; they did such a great job of making the danger feel mysterious and terrifying in the moment.

The actor who played the guy doing the test and was completely lying to everyone sadly passed away to cancer last year. He was in a British sitcom playing the father and in the series finale which was more of a behind the scenes segment his cast members said goodbye to him. It was lovely. (The show is called Friday night dinners) RIP.

This one is going to get heavy.

Supernatural stories are scary. Chernobyl: Hold my elephant's foot.

The composer of the score is an actual genius; she used sounds created by reactors to make some parts of the scores for the series.

This is a harrowing show. You guys are in for a ride... One of the best shows in years. There's also a Chernobyl podcast for all the episodes with the writer and showrunner of the series on KZfaq. One of the things he discusses is what actually happened, what didn't, and the process for choosing what went in to the show. They do discuss spoilers for episodes, so best to watch, then listen. Incredibly informative.

My dad and I watched this series and he (an engineer) told me that his company adopted a lot of new safety standards due to Chernobyl. He said it was insane to watch it unfold in real time on tv, and it was really crazy later when he learned that everything he saw/heard had been so heavily filtered and redacted.

Yeah.. I'm ready for this show again. As someone in another comment section once said... "Everyone is Gangsta until the nuclear fuel rods start dancing."

"The official policy of the state is that a global nuclear catastrophe is not possible in the Soviet Union."

I was 7 years old when this happened. It's the first major global news event I actually remember following. It might not be an easy watch, but it is utterly compelling and an important piece of Television that should be viewed by everyone, at least once.

7:44 Medusa Eyes: they're looking exactly into the opened core, which means, basically, watching death into the eyes. I'm really happy you chosed to watch this series guys (it's a real 5/5 stars!), but be prepared to the next episodes, because you will see some serious brutal scenes.

TBR: "It is only five episodes, so it is short and sweet..." Me: "Sweet? Oh, you sweet summer child."

Very excited for this. Everyone needs to see it.

Radiation poisoning is fairly non-intuitive. The line between what is imminently fatal and what could still allow for a fairly long life can be pretty hard to distinguish. Some things you would assume would kill you may not while other kinds of exposure will kill you within days or weeks.

This show is a masterpiece. Just 5 episodes, more like a really long movie. Just so well done and terrifying.

3.6 not good not terrible. Guy who knows what radiation does: Evacuate immediately.

I never watched a single episode, and I heard this series is so hard to watch, it's like you're there, knowing what those people had gone through.

This is very true... You have to know, in USSR there weren't a place for mistakes. They want to believe that USSR is the greatest country in the world. If you didn't agree with this, the goverment was able even to kill you. Very, very dark times. I remember this catastrophy, I live in Poland...

I love that a couple of these actors had the previous year been in the show The Terror which was my favorite show of 2018, and then this was my favorite show of 2019

Welcome to the scariest television show you will ever watch.

I remember talking about it in school the day after it happened, teachers told us all about how radiation works and how the detectors in my country were set off. It's an incredibly scary thing but also an utterly fascinating one.

Fun fact/Spoiler?? I dunno, it's history: The two workers who shared a smoke together near the end of the episode- the guy who held the door open and the one with glasses, both survived. I believe they have both passed away now, but knowing you've survived this is incredible.

Radiation poisoning is so scary, and frankly terrifying to even comprehend. Much, much scarier than any horror film monster anybody could ever come up with, and a realistic danger that still exists today. Keep tissues nearby, you'll need them! Great reactions.

This is quite possibly one of the top ten pieces of media ever created. It's horrifying, it's incredibly well shot and told, and it's about something that actually happened. You've got some difficult episodes ahead, but stick with them, be assured that all the questions you have as you watch this will be answered by the end.

In this series, they did an amazing job of giving the released radiation this looming presence that it almost feels like a character of its own. Its like this insidious serial killer that can't be seen or stopped.

Use Radaway

The frustration begins!! It's pretty accurate for the main stuff. They condensed some things and expanded others. The "fun" part is after watching looking up all the real people and events to compare You guys said you didn't know anything about radiation or power plants, you will soon.......

The old dude in the very beginning is in The Expanse. Btw, please watch The Expanse!

If you’ve seen the Harry Potter films, you might recognize the guy who played Fomin, the plant manager with glasses and receding hairline. He played Harry’s dad!

YES! Looking forward to these!

Radiation basically shreds your DNA at the molecular level and your body responds by liquefying from the inside. If you’re exposed a little further away, that DNA damage isn’t as quickly destructive, but it results in cancer throughout your body. This series gave me nightmares.

My favorite reaction channel by a mile and it's criminal you don't have more subs. What I really appreciate is you actually react to things like normal people and don't exaggerate and play dumb like some other reaction channels.

There was a companion podcast for this show that goes episode by episode talking about how they made it, what was real, what editorial changes they made(very few but sensible).

This became my favorite show ever to be produced. It does exactly what it's supposed to do, make you feel angry and sad.

you guys are in for a wild ride. This mini series was very well done and truly shows the devastation caused by this horrible accident

The way this series presents true-to-life events as a horror story is masterful. Definitely suggest checking out the filmmakers' supplemental materials (they did a podcast) discussing and analyzing the process of putting the actual events into a narrative structure. The showrunner Craig Mazin is also in charge of The Last of Us adaptation, which, considering how well he captured the apocalyptic tone here has me actually very excited for that series.

It’s interesting how in every reaction video I watch of the first video, almost everyone assumed that one guy with the bloody face was like that because of radiation. He only managed to live that long because he was standing on the top level of the turbine hall. Sadly his coworker who was on the main floor got crushed by the rubble when the pumps fractured and impacted because of the explosion.

One of my top 5 series ever. One of the most chilling quotes..."Do you taste metal?"

This is such a heart wrenching series. Those poor, poor people

I highly recommend reading "Midnight at Chernobyl" by Adam Higginbotham when you're done the series. The show is great, but as always the book fleshes things out and paints some characters in a slightly different light. Great, fast read.

So glad to see you reacting to this. Remember at the beginning they say. “What do lies cost “. It costs so many lives….

One thing to remember, this took place in the Soviet Union. Pretty much everything of their nuclear program was a state secret. NO ONE who lived close were ever told of the dangers of radiation.

This series was so great! I'm glad you guys are doing a reaction to it. I loved the series. It was appropriately dark and heavy, and it did a great job with explaining the incident as well as the lessons we learned (or should have learned) from it.

So pleased you’re reacting to this series. Strap in - it is going to be a truly devastating ride Extraordinary television

"... the danger is that if we hear enough lies, Dyatlov will spend the next years in a prison labor camp." that cut really made me laugh.

in 1986 when this happened Gorbachev was only in his first year of being General Secretary and you had many Soviet hardliners who were still in from the Chernenko, Andropov, Brezhnev, Khrushchev eras in various positions of power. Their job was to control the people and keep them believing that the Soviet/Communist system works and that everything was fine. After this event Gorbachev went about removing such hardliners from positions of power and bringing in new, younger communists to help fix the country which would eventually collapse some five years after this event

This show is great! I’m excited to see your your reactions!

It's so insane that the explosion happens exactly at 1:23:45...There are things in life that are so precise and unique, you just can imagine them to be real ! Numerologist are still going crazy over this one !

This series is so totally dark and brutal. I find it way more scary that unlike most other shows or movies, this actually happened.

One of the best HBO has done since Band of Brothers and The Pacific! It’ll make you really angry with the secrecy, terrified at what could’ve happened, and eternally grateful for the people who helped with the prevention of everything

Excellent series and excellent reactors? What a nice surprise. It will be awesome to experience this with you guys over the next few weeks. Thanks for giving us some fantastic content to look forward to and keep up the great work!

Hahaha you nutters. Band of brothers and the Pacific was fun, let's cheer our selves up with some Chernobyl lol God I love these two. Have at it.

7:45 When you're staring into the fire that just killed you.

Unfortunately the guy with the moustache, the guy in charge, he died earlier this year from I think a form of cancer, he was in other shows and think he was in another UK sitcom as well, nailed this role.

Words can’t describe the emotions from watching this series.

"This is going to be a roller-coaster... of a series" You know how at the start of a roller-coaster ride you have that *BIG* first drop and your heart goes into your throat and you're screaming your head off and you think you're going to die... And the bottom of that drop finally comes and you can breathe... Maybe even let out a laugh and enjoy the rest of the ride? Yeah... There's no bottom with this one.

The whole instrumental soundtrack was created from noises recorded in a nuclear reactor. It's honestly amazing.

Radiation "COOKS YOU ALIVE"! This is the scariest horror film of the past decade! That site will be lethal and deadly for a thousand of years. I got so anxious and stressed by the first episode that I didn't watch any further episodes!

This series is a masterpiece.

Very adequate content. Thank you.

I’m glad you’re reviewing Chernobyl, this is one of the best limited series I’ve ever seen.

In the 80's Russia no one dared pass on bad news. During the cold war anything that shows failure had to be hidden from the world. Nothing was allowed to diminish for the reputation of the great soviet state. for a good example of this look up the death of Vladimir Komarov's.3.5 is HUGE exposure is normally measured in MILI rems as in 0.001 rems.

I'm from Russia and I was a child, when this accident happened. But I remember how everyone were really nervous about radioactive contamination, despite the fact that we were living very far away, no one knew nothing and a lot of rumors were spreading around. This series catched up the atmosphere pretty accurate, this is one of the most realistic portray of what happend there. Sorry for my bad English.

Спасибо всем ,кто понимает и знает что произошло в Чернобыле в 1986 году! Мы с этим живём!

I'm not the type of person to watch films or TV shows multiple times (Once you've seen it you know whats going to happen) I've watched this 5 or 6 six times. One of the best TV shows I've ever seen and I'm 53 this year.

Stellan Skarsgard and Jared Harris are brilliant in this - starting out hating each other (govt vs scientist) then growing to respect what each can and cannot do. Awards went to both actors.

I've watched this show 3 times, it's just that good. and more terrifying than any horrofilm I watched in the last 10 years

Strap yourselves in. This one is gonna be rough. And make sure you have tissues within reach for Episodes 3 and 4.

Здравствуйте! Thank you for watching Chernobyl. Please keep in mind that the general public, and even many working at the power plant, had not been fully informed as to the risks of radiation; This will explain much of their behaviour throughout the series. It is not intentional ignorance, but at the time, even in the West the average citizen did not have much information on how nuclear power functioned and what damage could be caused. This led to protests in the West after Three Mile Island incident in Pennsylvania, but in Russia, this information was largely supressed until Chernobyl began to result in somewhat more public awareness of nuclear risks. Please look up the prior accidents, Kyshtym and Mayak as well as Chelyabinsk, to understand more if you would like. Also, not only was most nuclear information not public knowledge at that time, but there were very few places to learn about it; Remember the internet was not an option, and no average local library carried this type of academic text unless it was a science university! So if you find yourself being frustrated at people's actions, please remember with compassion that there was no way anyone could know. And the people who did know, kept it secret... EDIT: Also, NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH, but the IAEA has real accident reports for nuclear incidents available publicly online. If you wish to learn even more about these types of situations, there are many files such as this one for you to read: www.iaea.org/publications/10602/the-radiological-accident-in-lia-georgia However, please, please read with caution, as these reports contain medical information.

The composer of this show went on to compose Joker, for which she won an oscar. Also for this score she use many sounds recorded inside an actual reactor

keep in mind that most "mainstream known info" about radiation, was learned from this accident and normal people basically had no idea. and you couldn't say you were at fault, or you just got shot..

Chernobyl is so unique...it has the tone of a psychological horror movie...until you realize its very real , it happened and is very viceral at the same time...A little taste of apocalypse that the people of Pripyat at to suffer too...One of the best mini-serie of the decade easy !

I still remember it well. I was a child and I went to school here in Germany. Very far from Chernobyl. It was raining and we weren't allowed to go outside during the break. Because of the great radiation in rainwater. Even today, the radiation can still be detected in mushrooms in some areas.

"Did you lower the control rods?" Meanwhile the firefighter is outside with a piece of the granite control rod guide. Like asking your friend "Did you start the car?" but a crackheads half way up the street with your camshaft.

Welcome to the Soviet Union. There’s nothing wrong here everything is perfect and fine. And if you say other wise the KGB visits you and you disappear forever without a trace

"what a bunch of lunatics!!" *Soviet Union* haha

Holy shit. I was getting intense chills from this.

I am from Austria and i remember that day very well! I lived far away to be in real danger, but there were days, we should stay at home, because if the wind brought the particles in our direction, it was a risk to go outside! Greetings from Austria!

I read Midnight at Chernobyl and one person they did not characterize was an architect of Pripyat, the city next to the Chernobyl power plant. The military wanted the city plans but she only had one copy. She couldn’t make copies with a copier because only the KGB had access to copy machines, so she had to make hand drawn copies of the plans. Mind blowing. 🤯

A terrible disaster, but wish HBO hadn't played with known facts for dramatic effect. There was virtually no smoke after the initial explosion and fire, the bridge of death is also disputed. There are other factually incorrect incidents like this later in the series. Some of these incidents can been seen from video of the actual disaster. Frustrating because the story is powerful enough and the series is a very dramatic account.

OK, I clicked the sub-button now. You deserve it after watching this horror. Being a ten year old German kid in Berlin-West at that time I remember vividly 1986, first the Challenger desaster, then Chernobyl. No going out for a full spring, no milk. We "buried" our vegetable garden we had back then. When this show came out, I stumbled over it in my mothers place (she has sky channels), and it was "the horror". I literaly shivered in front of the TV and it was hot summer. After the second episode I had to force my mom to keep on watching it, such a harrowing experience, especially for those who were already afraid of it back in 1986.

The fact it's not even a fire but a glow that's literally cooking everything is terrifying and a kinda Incredible

Gotta remember, this is the Soviet Union. The wrath of the government could be worse than radiation. The belief of country over personal liability is prevalent. Failure is not acceptable. And secrecy is paramount. At least that’s what we were taught as American kids in the 80’s!

The series is as close to the truth as possible, eyewitnesses and our liquidators and historians have recognized this. I especially want to note how HBO conveyed the atmosphere of the Soviet Union - there are no words! That's right, down to the smallest details. I lived in the Soviet Union until I was 9 years old, until it broke up, I remember.

This show is really scary because it was real... And the scariest part (to me) was that when this happened, I was 5 years old. So this is not even something that "happened before my time" or something "that happened a long time ago". It was real and still is, since the surrounding area is still a forbidden zone because of the amount of radiation still present in it.

The clouds you see at the end traveled all the way to Northern Sweden. Because this was kept quiet, nuclear power workers in Sweden were exposed to radioactivity when the workers were to enter the nuclear power plant, so they thought it was a leak in their nuclear power plant. But later they learned what had happened in Chernobyl. Just look at a map how far it is... 28 hours if you drive a car. 35 years since the Chernobyl accident - the traces can still be seen in Sweden. Large parts of Sweden were exposed to radioactive fallout after the Chernobyl disaster. Since then, Swedish authorities have made intensive measurements of its impact. Today, traces of the radioactive substances are few - but high levels can still be found in wild boar. Sweden warned the world about the Chernobyl disaster.

It’s shows how bad it really was, when the 1st episode turns out to be the easiest and least disturbing to watch…..you now have to watch the rest….Good Luck I was a teenager when this happened and most of it is 100% true,; a few of the characters where changed (merged into 1-2 people) to make the show flow easier, but all the main points were 100% true….

"Everything is so understated, No one wants to take blame..." Welcome to Cold War Russia. No body wanted to face the brutal consequences of this catastrophe and so they all willfully underplayed and ignored it as long as they could.

To put the numbers into perspective: The human body can safely absorb 2 Röntgen ...per year. 3.6 Röntgen per hour is equal to more than 15700 times that safety threshold. Also, the lethal dose is roughly 500 Röntgen, so if one would be exposed to 3.6 Röntgen per hour continously, a fatal dose of radiation would be absorbed in less than 6 days. So, 3.6 Röntgen per hour is indeed "significant".

"Fun Fact": The control room and the other 3 reactor block were still active for 14 more years... So there were still around 10000 people working in the evacuated zone all these years. Even after hutting down the reactors, there were still some 2000 people working there for maintenance and security... Also there was a second accident in block 2 with a massive hydrogen tank explosion in 91. So this was more or less the event that Dyatlov is assuming at the beginning of this episode. "A tank exploded..."