Chernobyl (miniseries)

Historical accuracy[edit]

The series was praised in the media for being exhaustively researched,^[45] but some commentators noted inaccuracies or liberties were taken for dramatic purposes, such as Legasov being present at the trial.^[46][47] The first episode depicts Legasov timing his suicide down to the second (1:23:45) to coincide with the second anniversary of the Chernobyl explosion. Legasov actually committed suicide a day later. The epilogue acknowledges that the character of Ulana Khomyuk is fictional, a composite of Soviet scientists. Journalist Adam Higginbotham, who spent a decade researching the disaster and authored the non-fiction account Midnight in Chernobyl, points out in an interview that there was no need for scientists to "uncover the truth" because "many nuclear scientists knew all along that there were problems with this reactor—the problems that led ultimately to an explosion and disaster".^[48] Artistic license was also used in the depiction of the "Bridge of Death", from which spectators in Pripyat watched the aftermath of the explosion; the miniseries asserts that the spectators subsequently died, a claim which is now generally held to be an urban legend.^[49][50][51]


The series also discusses a potential third steam explosion, due to the risk of corium melting through to the water reservoirs below the reactor building, as being in the range of 2 to 4 megatons. This would have been physically impossible under the circumstances, as exploding reactors do not function as thermonuclear bombs.^[52][53] According to series author Craig Mazin, the claim was based on one made by Belarusian nuclear physicist Vassili Nesterenko about a potential 3–5 Mt third explosion, even though physicists hired for the show were unable to confirm its plausibility.^[54]


The series' production design, such as the choice of sets, props, and costumes, has received high praise for its accuracy. Several sources have commended the attention to even minor setting details, such as the use of actual Kyiv-region license plate numbers, and a New Yorker review states that "the material culture of the Soviet Union is reproduced with an accuracy that has never before been seen" from either Western or Russian filmmakers.^{[55][48][5][56]} Oleksiy Breus, a Chernobyl engineer, commends the portrayal of the symptoms of radiation poisoning;^[57] Robert Gale, a doctor who treated Chernobyl victims, states that the miniseries overstated the symptoms by suggesting that the patients were radioactive.^[58] In a more critical judgment, a review from the Moscow Times highlights some small design errors: for instance, Soviet soldiers are inaccurately shown as holding their weapons in Western style and Legasov's apartment was too "dingy" for a scientist of his status.^[59]


In a 1996 interview, Lyudmilla Ignatenko said that her baby "took the whole radioactive shock [...] She was like a lightning rod for it".^[60] This perception that her husband, Vasily, was radioactive and caused the death of her daughter soon after birth was recreated in the miniseries. However, Ukrainian medical responder Alla Shapiro, in a 2019 interview with Vanity Fair, said such beliefs were false, and that once Ignatenko was showered and out of his contaminated clothing, he would not have been dangerous to others, precluding this possibility.^[61] During an interview to BBC News Russian in 2019, Lyudmilla Ignatenko described how she suffered harassment and criticism when the series was aired. She claimed reporters hounded her at home in Moscow and even jammed their foot in her door as they tried to interview her, and that she suffered criticism for exposing her unborn daughter to Vasily, despite the fact she hadn't known anything about radiation then and that risk to a fetus from such exposure is infinitesimally small.^[58] She said she never gave HBO and Sky Atlantic permission to tell her story, saying there had been a single phone call offering money after filming had been completed. She thought the call was a hoax because it came from a Moscow number and hung up. HBO Sky rejects this, saying they had exchanges with Lyudmilla before, during and after filming with the opportunity to participate and provide feedback and at no time did she express a wish for her story to not be included.^[62]


The portrayal of Soviet officials, including the plant management and central government figures, received some criticism. Breus, the Chernobyl engineer, argues that the characters of Viktor Bryukhanov, Nikolai Fomin and Anatoly Dyatlov were "distorted and misrepresented, as if they were villains".^[57] Some reviews criticized the series for creating a stark moral dichotomy, in which the scientists are depicted as overly heroic while the government and plant officials are uniformly villainous.^{[55][63][64][65]} The occasional threats of execution from government officials were also seen by some as anachronistic: Masha Gessen of the New Yorker argues that "summary executions, or even delayed executions on orders of a single apparatchik, were not a feature of Soviet life after the nineteen-thirties".^[55][59] Higginbotham takes a more positive view of the portrayal of the authorities, arguing that the unconcerned attitude of the central government was accurately depicted.^[48]