CAUTION: This post contains SPOILERS for Chernobyl through the finale. If you need to be inspired to start watching, I’d start here.
HBO pulled off a monumental feat by completing its Chernobyl miniseries in just five episodes, given the far-reaching effects the Chernobyl disaster had on the USSR and the rest of the world. But, in just five hours of television, Craig Mazin and Johan Renck have chronicled these unbelievable events with such startling accuracy it leaves the audience wondering, “Did it really happen that way?”
The answer is, almost always, yes. Astonishingly, down to sequence of buttons pushed in the control room, the show almost always faithfully reproduces the details of history. That’s especially true of this finale episode, which pays attention to even the smallest intricacies. You can even watch actual video from the real Chernobyl trails to compare. The asymmetrical curtains in the courtroom, the models of the cameras…nearly everything about the room is replicated. Even the actors bear striking resemblances to their real-life counterparts. Dyatlov’s (Paul Ritter) outbursts during the trial are ripped right from the record. Game of Thrones fans will be quick to notice Michael McElhatton’s (Roose Bolton) appearance as Soviet state prosecutor Andrei Stepashin. In this episode as in the others, the small things are done with fantastic precision.
However, “Vichnaya Pamyat” also contains the show’s biggest departure from history, albeit for a very good reason. One major difference between a documentary and a docu-drama is the need for satisfying character resolution. The need to close some of those character arcs led Mazin to make a huge tweak to the trial. Khomyuk, as we discussed last week, is one character who represents many scientists working in Russia at the time. She’s not based on any one real person, so she obviously wasn’t at the real trial. But neither were Lagasov and Shcherbina. Legasov’s involvement ended after the Vienna conference, where he kept the State’s secret. As Mazin describes in this week’s edition of the Chernobyl Podcast, the two characters needed more active resolutions to their character arcs, and the trial was the most logical place for them to happen. Legasov reveals the truth, and Shcherbina creates the space for him to do so.
But the heart of Legasov’s story is translated faithfully. He still attempted to reveal the truth to the scientific community, but those involved in the state’s cover-up rejected him. He was demoted, shunned, and eventually took his own life. In real life, the narratives do not always come to a satisfying end; we do not all get cathartic character arcs, and truth does not always prevail over the loudest of lies. But with time, the truth will always its chance for retribution. Though he received no official awards for his bravery, we all now know the name of the hero that was Valery Legasov. And I understand how the needs of a TV show demanded this change to the story be made.
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I have no issue with the overall changes made in this series, and am even more impressed by all of the things they got absolutely correct. Chernobyl may be the most shining example of a docu-drama that departs from reality in limited ways only to service the storytelling, as opposed to pleasing or shocking the audience. I hope more creators and directors look to it in the future as an achievement in period television, and I hope we all learn its valuable lesson. Let’s continue to strive toward a more truthful world.
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