First Time Watching | CHERNOBYL | Episode 1 

I've watched hundreds of horror movies in my life and can legit say that nothing has ever terrified me as much as this show.

A quote regarding the "soundtrack" for the music in Chernobyl: "Every sound heard in Guðnadóttir's extraordinary score was captured from an actual power plant, including pumps, reactors and turbines. The Icelandic composer captured field recordings at a now-decommissioned plant in Lithuania, where the series was filmed."

This is possibly one of the best miniseries ever made. It's brilliantly produced and acted, very gripping, scary, heartbreaking and eye-opening. A tough watch but a necessary one.

Awesome reaction! The reason why you saw so much denial and buck passing is because, in the Soviet Union, if something went wrong, you better not be responsible for it.

It's a tough and frustrating story, but I think it's necessary to understand "the cost of lies."

One of the former Soviet high ranking officials who appears in this series watched the show when it aired and confirmed that, yeah, this really accurate. This show is incredible. Btw, the show runner here, Craig Maizan, was also the show runner on TLOU.

10:05 that shot of the burning remains of the reactor core always makes me think that mankind opened a portal to hell that night and were unprepared for the consequences.

The dying trees part was absolutely real, this place is now called “The Red forest”

I love how naïve but so very emotionally invested you both are. Seeing someone learn the gruesome details of this incident for the first time is a gift you have given us. Thank you!

Chernobyl is one of the greatest miniseries ever made. I'm glad you are reacting to it. This show is a bit dramatized, but still, it's based on real historical events, real characters, and real stories. After episode 5, consider watching a short epilogue. They will explain what happened at Chernobyl after the disaster and what happened to all the people who were involved in the liquidation.

Lmao “isn’t it in Call of Duty” was the last response I was expecting. I was posted to Germany in ‘87 right after this happened.

Thrilled that you guys are reacting to this! It's definitely one of those shows that everyone should watch at least once. The show has some inaccuracies for the sake of watchability, but the broad strokes are very, very accurate, and Chernobyl is one of the events that still colors the international political landscape today. It contributed (maybe more than any other single event) to the fall of the Soviet Union. The miniseries also asks a lot of questions that are relevant even today about the nature of a government's relationship with its people. Chernobyl was at least as much a political disaster as it was a nuclear one, as the bureaucrats and politicians made everything worse at basically every turn as they tried to cover their asses in an ever-expanding umbrella of bullshit, first at the local level and then all the way up to the Kremlin. It was taught in one of the domestic governance courses at my university as being one of the absolute worst case scenarios for governmental dysfunction and the perverse incentives that can arise in a de facto patronage system like what the late Soviet Union had. The show is also just damned good TV, although it gets very, very grim at times, far more so than The Last of Us. I'd also really strongly recommend the companion podcast to the show that the showrunner put out. Lots of context and interesting facts there!

I’m glad y’all are watching this! It’s something everyone needs to see. Be warned, they pull no punches. Get ready! Especially with episode 4…..

omg, from Arcane, one of my favorite shows, to Chernobyl. Another one of my favorites. I'm excited to see if you like this series. This is going to be a very dark ride but it's worth it.

the best way to explain what radiation really is, is that its fire. Literal fire, but due to what light frequency it emits, we as humans cannot detect it. Radiation is like a ghost-flame, it continues to burn, and since animals were never put through the environmental pressures to evolve ways to detect it, it is imperceptible to biological life.

There is a podcast made by the writer for this series about the making of this series. It's equally interesting and heart-braking. He talks about how some characters in this mini-series are representations of teams of people (because there was A LOT of people involved) and where they had to make changes to be able to fit everything in. Something I learned from the podcast that they weren't able to address in the show was that the radioactive dust was blown all over Europe and people in Sweden got sick (the Skarsgård's dad got sick from it, if I recall the podcast properly) and Europe had zero clue what was going on for most of this.

When that fire-fighter picked up that rock of graphite 8:48 , that one thing is like holding 4 million X-rays in your hand.

"I might actually have nightmares if we keep watching this." "Yeah, I know." "Are you ready to watch the next one?" "Yep." I laughed out loud, haha. That's how you know the show is good.

Arguably my favorite mini-series I've ever watched, thanks for starting this journey! It's not gonna be easy but you won't regret it

Amazing show and I am glad you guys watch it. Concerning the released radiation that started to cover parts of Europe, I was 11 when Chernobyl happened, we weren't allowed to go outside when it rained. If it started raining while you were outside, you were supposed so seek shelter right away. Certain edible mushrooms and wildboar/venison from southern Germany has still a high concentration of radioactive Isotopes and shouldn't be eaten 40 years later.

"It's in Call of duty" LOL

I remember this accident - I was about 32 at the time - little bits of information came out day by day, it became more and more clear how bad it was - the radiation cloud went around the world, monitors in California detected it when it finally crossed the Pacific Ocean - also, note that the radiation of concern is gamma rays, which are like x-rays but more energetic - but gamma rays are emitted by radioactive matter, so the dust and ash from the burning graphite & uranium in the core was blown on the wind, shining out gamma rays the whole time. But even having been around when it happened, we had nothing like the amount of you-are-there understanding of the disaster that this special shows - it's worth seeing, please see the whole thing, as citizens of the modern world we need to know how this sort of event comes about

Please keep watching those miniseries! "Chernobyl" plus "Band of Brothers", "The Pacific" and "True Detective" are absolutely amazing and a must see!

Fun fact, the worker who held the door opened survived. Because his body was half exposed while opening the door he was able to recover albeit the skin and areas of his body that were exposed deteriorated and had to undergo 15 surgeries including multiple skin grafts. Never the less he was one of the few orignal workmen that survived the first day at the plant 4.

Yes! An excellent miniseries. Great cart, great cinematography, great music and a true thing that happened. So glad you are starting this ❤ Edit: also made by the same guy who in part made the last of us.

Awesome, one of the greatest mini series in recent memory. And I don't think there's anyone I'd rather subject myself to it again with than you two. This will be a rough ride but it's neccessary.

In Soviet Russia, even today, their power comes from the perception of their power, despite reality being very much different. For the executive leadership in the country to admit that a disaster like this could happen would be unbelievably embarrassing for them, both as a country and on the geopolitical world stage. Nobody in middle management wants to acknowledge that anything like Chernobyl could happen, or to be the one to tell their bosses that it happened. As bad as Chernobyl was, it was made orders of magnitude worse because of their response to the disaster during the first 24 hours.

I bet you're rethinking those Chernobyl coffee mugs... 🤣 0:47

That beam is what is known as "Cherenkov radiation". It is due to the radiation ionizing the air around the reactor core and producing photons that are extra fast (hence the blue color). There is a really cool video of this, in this context horrifying, phenomena from a test reactor in the US where the reactor glows blue underwater for the same reason.

I really liked that both of you reacted respectfully, not making innapropriate jokes or anything like that. This series requires that respect, because it’s real history. Thank you.

BTW the forest at the end is called "Red Forest" which comes from the ginger-brown colour of the pine trees after they died following the absorption of high levels of ionizing radiation. Yes, this really did happen. even today that area (more the waste graveyards) remains one of the most contaminated in the world to this day.

the bleeding trough the skin is high radiation damage. i was in kindergarden as it happend, we weren't allowed to play outside. stay inside during rain and the city closed the playgrounds and extracted all the sand from the sandboxes, too couter the radiated rainfall in my community in Germany. the radiation cloud reached over a good portion of europe .

I don't do spoilers, having said that, hold on to your seats cuz this show DOES NOT HOLD BACK!!!! It's a series that needs to be shown to the world, or at least to all students in schools and universities. It gives all those who may not know how scary, deadly, efficient, radiation really is, as well as being relentless and unstoppable. So glad my favorite duo is reacting to this one here, you 2 are awesome together, such chemistry and closeness, it's a pleasure to watch, and I absolutely love your channel. As Haylo mentioned, this show is as accurate as can be, and pretty damn graphic, but it's worth it, buckle up and enjoy the ride, can't wait to see your reactions.

Jared Harris (playing Valery Legasov, the man recording the tapes in the beginning) and Stellan Skarsgard put on a masterful performance in this series. Looking forward to the next episode!

I was 16 years old in 1986 (I'm Canadian)- we heard on the news about the "Nuclear Cloud" from Chernobyl and how it far it could travel- possibly crossing the Atlantic and affecting North America. However I never truly knew just how bad it was until I had watched a documentary on the 20th anniversary of the accident in 2006. The documentary was grim, startling and depressing... This miniseries on Chernobyl makes that documentary I watched look like a birthday party video. This is going to be a tough watch- but an important event to learn about. Looking forward to you two going through this series.

Looking into an active reactor core is definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

This series is quite accurate, and teaches a great lesson about Corruption, Arrogance and Sacrifice... and of course History.

5:50 yes thats the actual recording of the call they made to the fire department that night.

Chernobyl does a good job are emphasizing events that actually took place... But MOST importantly. it deeply instills the ever subtle yet mysterious "Radiation" damage that can happen in mere seconds. the story telling and the constant glooming fact that there is a silent killing force that is doing so much damage to your body you don't even realize it till hours later. its probably up there in my top 5 as the best accurate historical TV shows.

Growing up tin the 60's I was very aware of the event when it happened. Binge watched the series on my trans-Atlantic flight to spend 3 months in Eastern Europe the end of 2019. Much of that time I traveled Ukraine. The war with russia was on going then. I observed many aspects of Ukrainian psychology then, Chernobyl, russian aggression, a hunger for Freedom and democracy, work ethic, ingenuity, and an uncanny sense of humor. Slava Ukraini I'll enjoy watching this with you. Buckle up. Many of the comments below give you good info regarding the series and events. Younger people need more history education to understand the world of today and hopefully we won't repeat mistakes of our past.

An exposed nuclear reactor core is about as near as we can get to an actual Lovecraftian horror. "A nameless, formless malevolence from which there is neither defense, nor escape. To gaze upon it's evil would drive one to madness; to stand in its presence is certain death."

i'm from the UK, lamb and beef still have raised radiation levels from animals eating grass contaminated 40 years ago by this

"I remember something went wrong" That had me rolling. But cool that more folks are learning about it. I think the show did a great job at shedding light on what happened.

I remember when this happened when I was a kid. I have many friends that are now in the US them emigrated here after the Soviet Union collapsed. Almost all of them were surprised how right this mini-series got the incident.

Many first responders didn't have any protection, but in a days after many people were given chemical protection gear (that's all they had in a storages) - like rubber costumes, but it was completely useless against radiation. In a photographs from this period many people just wore gas masks. Things improved later when they started cleaning process, but only for people working directly at the plant, or radiologists that knew what to do (wear lead). For example many police officers who were coordinating evacuation should be also given protection but they stood only in cotton masks in a fields/villages surrounding the plant, being extremely exposed.

You asked whether the cloud was for real. Yeah it was. The depiction might or might not be exaggerated, but even northern Germany was affected by it so much that our government handed out iodine pills. Also, even to this day, you are not supposed to eat game or collect mushrooms in the forests as it is still considered unsafe to eat in some parts of our country. And Tschernobyl is so far away and other countries were affected so much more that us. By the way, I was born years after the catastrophe and still remember warnings broadcast by the radio because of the radiation. Years later. Tschernobyl was crazy

I’m so glad you guys reacted to this. Masterful television. Before Craig Mazin did The Last Of Us he did this. This show is the reason Mazin was able to do The Last Of Us. He built up a lot of clout with HBO with this series and all the awards it won.

This is about 2 disasters - one was the reactor. The other was a system of secrecy that kept information from people that could have saved lives. Even the (soon to be infamous) Dyatlov - as ugly as he was - was acting on the assumption that a core explosion was impossible, and that those in charge would lie about one of it benefited them.

Great reaction ladies. FYI it also very nearly happened in the USA too. The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, near the capital city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The reactor accident began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. It is the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point logarithmic International Nuclear Event Scale, the TMI-2 reactor accident is rated Level 5, an "Accident with Wider Consequences". As an amazing coincidence on March 15, 1979, twelve days before the accident, the movie The China Syndrome premiered and was initially met with backlash from the nuclear power industry, claiming it to be "sheer fiction" and a "character assassination of an entire industry". In the film, television reporter Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) and her cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas) secretly film a major accident at a nuclear power plant while taping a series on nuclear power. At one point in the film, an official tells Jane Fonda's character that an explosion at the plant "could render an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable".] After the release of the film, Fonda began lobbying against nuclear power.

0:38 - "I dont like to know the truth." Dont worry, comrade, neither did the people in charge of resolving the conundrum in question, so You will feel right at home.

Dyatlov, the guy in charge at the plant was likely nowhere near as bad as he is often portrayed. The problem was one of the more popular historical accounts of Chernobyl was written by someone who had an axe to grind with him. According to other accounts Dyatlov actually tried to help out and was probably the one person who knew what he doing because he actually was in a previous nuclear incident aboard a submarine where he got a relatively minor dose of radiation (which is why I'm inclined to believe it rather than him just being stubborn idiot in denial along with several things he wrote afterwards).

16:00 they did know how dangerous it was, they just didn’t know that was the situation 😢

The trees are referred to as the "glowing forest" of Chernobyl. The sap in the trees absorbed so much radiation that the trees glowed at night. It's no longer a "threat" per se but the effort to contain it and every other problem ... well, that's a later episode.

This call from beggining it was real one. This girl was calling all the fire department around powerplant. If u knew russian - she was in extreme stress.

12:07 i'm impressed with Haylo's knowledge.

There are some inaccuracies (some are quite big) in this miniseries, especially from a scientific standpoint. Please don't think that nuclear energy is dangerous because of this series or because of this accident, Fukushima and Three Mile Island (the 3 accidents that are usually mentioned), it's actually among the safest forms of energy we currently use. Edit: 6:20 no, it wasn't 8:16 no, you're right, they didn't 8:34 yes, but they didn't use it at first because they didn't know what was happening 8:44 as they mention later, that's graphite, it is used as moderator for nuclear fission reactions (it slows neutrons down) 16:00 it's not that they weren't aware, they weren't paranoid as people are today. Those kids playing in the ashes had a higher chance of developing lung problems from breathing the ashes themselves rather than having any effect from the radiation. I mean, I wouldn't play during an accident, but most of them are probably still living in Ukraine/Russia today (or died/displaced because of the war)

Yes, the forest is real. It’s called the red forest and it’s still affected.

Love that you're watching this! Hands down one of the best mini-series I've seen. Really difficult to watch, but also brilliant.

2:46 The music was composed by Oscar awarded Hildur Guðnadóttir. She did a fantastic job.

"Why wouldn't they have Iodine Pills!!??" Welcome to the Soviet Era

I've always hated the sound of Geiger counters, it's so unsettling but after watching this show, it straight away traumatized me lol

The area where the trees died is now called the Red Forest. It's still like that today. It's so radioactive that the trees never recover. This is as accurate as possible.

I vaguely remember my 6th grade science teacher talking about power plants, and how one exploded. But it was only spoken briefly. No teacher ever showed me anything like what this show has.

The item that the firefighter picked up was a part of the reactor fuel channel and was highly radioactive, as it was part of the reactor’s core, if the core is outside then it’s a seriously bad day.

I remember when this happened. We didn't immediately know a whole lot because it was in the USSR, Ukraine SSR. It was terrifying because nuclear power was still relatively new and ordinary people didn't understand it much other than "nuclear". The saddest part is the poor people of Pripyat who didn't even know of the potential danger and had no idea what was happening.

The firefighters in Chernobyl very well knew how deadly radiation is. They did what had to be done even after the dosimetrists were fleeing the scene.

I was there in 2010, very eerie hearing the Geiger counter pick up pace as we got closer. We drove through the red forest which you saw in this episode. Also visited the reactor 4 building (outside), went to the bridge, school, hotel etc.

24:10 "Is that real?" Yes, it's real. It's called the Red Forest: trees killed by the radioactive smoke and ash from the open reactor.

I remember watching this for the first time and saying to my dad “this is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”. Still is.

The trees at the end are real. This place is called the "rusty forest" even though the level of radiation in the air has long been normal at both ends of the road that passes through the forest there are signs that it is forbidden to stop there. And the signs are there for a reason, Russian soldiers who wanted to capture Kyiv in 2022 set up combat positions there, dug trenches, cut trees, cooked food, slept, and were hospitalized with radiation poisoning after returning. The rusty forest is no joke🤷‍♀

Reactor 4 exploded that night, as we all know. But most people don't know Chernobyl had 3 more reactor that needed to be operated. You can't flip a switch and bugger of home. The last reactor was shut down in december of 2000! Clean up at Chernobyl is scheduled to be finished in 2065!

Oh Lord, you better buckle up tight because this is gonna be rough. Chernobyl happened during the Cold War, when I was in high school. It was a defining event of my generation. In one of his tape recordings, Legasov said, 'Recalling this trip now, I must say that I had absolutely no idea that we were moving towards an event of a planetary scale, that would most likely be remembered like events such as famous volcanic eruptions; Pompei for example or something similar to that.'

24:15 Oh no, the tree’s aren’t dead. It just irradiated the tree’s so much that the leaves turned red.

It wasn't their reputations they were worried about; it was being taken behind a wall and being shot for questioning what they were told not to question.

While a LOT of the science regarding the radioactivity and its effects on people are exaggerated as heck, the fear and genuine incompetence displayed is 100% real. Amazing series!

Fun Fact: The team who made this incredible show also made Star Wars: Andor, which is why that show (which is probably the best Star Wars in decades) has a similar feel of palpable dread, though not as severe as in Chernobyl. Andor even features a handful of the same actors.

"Me when there is a wildfire/" I am the same. Wildfires in Los Angeles. Hurricane Sandy in NYC. Even when I heard about a rare tornado in my neighborhood I went to look. I had a good friend who was in Minsk when this happened. He died young from a very rare form of thyroid cancer that was not so rare among people near Chernobyl. He almost certainly was a victim of this. Iodine pills would of protected him. He left a wife and child when he died.

They definitely had radiation suits at the time and were aware the dangers of radiation. This happened on 1986. Russia had atomic weapons since the late 1940s early 1950s. The firefighters were told it was just a roof fire. They were not told it was an explosion so didn’t take any radiation precautions. The engineer in charge keep refusing to believe it had exploded.

"I don't like this." - "Want to watch the next one?" "Yep." XD

As a young woman when this actually happened, I'm always proud of young reactors responses to this show. Your immediate recognition of how bad this event was - is literally *because* of this event. Until this point the world believed that a meltdown was impossible and so safety measures were far more haphazard, and medical communities had no idea what the correct responses were. Thank you for sharing.

acute radiation sickness is probably about as horrible a way to die as there is, but I gotta say I imagine the idea that any of those workers got to look into the open reactor and see the reaction in full bloom... imagine the majesty of it. Power like a star right in front of you

I remember when this happened. I was seven. Here in Finland it was recommended not to pick and eat mushrooms for couple of years after this. Finland is quite far away from Ukraine, but winds brought some radiation here. Not enough to cause any immediate danger, but some recommendations from the authorities.

I was in my mid teens in the UK when this happened. I remember having to stay inside due to the fallout. This series is a wild ride. Well done for already knowing about iodine.

Loved you two watching

The people watching from the Bridge of Death are an urban legend. It was called that for a couple of years before the accident because a man jumped off it in front of a train. It was two in the morning on a school night and the bridge was a long uphill walk outside town. People didn't keep their cars at home in Prip'yat, and anyone who cared to could just go up the stairs to their roof and have a better view.

Not five minutes into episode 1, and already weeping? My sweet summer children, have tissues and comfort blankets on standby, you will need them well before the end!

This first episode was a non stop panic attack for me. I read so much about this accident but nothing can prepare you for the visceral reality of what happened.

Glad you get to experience this masterpiece. Cause it's something most people should see. My childhood friend back in Lithuania was what is called a child of chernobyl. He was born around that time when the accident happened. He got blood cancer when he was a 18-19. died 3 weeks. Miss him tho. And the scene where the bird dropped and the kids where walking from school It's filmed in Lithuania (majority of this mini series is) I actually lived right by that block. Around the time when they filmed this lol.They closed down part of that entire neighborhood. And fun fact, the music was recorded with the sounds made by a soviet made nuclear plant in Ignalina.

Been there. Very haunting place. An entire dead city being reclaimed by nature.

This is why it is so important not to let just one group, faction or party determine what is "misinformation". Censoring "misinformation" may actually be keeping the truth from the public (as it did in this case).

Was living in the town of Gävle, Sweden during that time. Significant hit by fallout. Still today we are recommended to measure levels of radiation in mushrooms and wild boar meat. Today I work as a NDT technician with X-ray and sometimes with quality controll at Forsmark nuclear power plant. Respect but not fear of radiation. Remember girls, this is a great series but not a documentary.

I really recommend a series of Polish documentaries titled The Last People of Chernobyl (it's available on YT with English subtitles). It tells the stories of people who still live in the zone - there's a small group of elderly people who returned to their homes after the catastrophe and have been living there all by themselves up till this day. The documentaries were co-created by my friend who also organizes urban trips to Pripyat. On one occasion they encountered an old lady in a seemingly abandoned village. She needed immediate medical assistance and they helped her. That is how they learned that there were still people living there and from that point on they have been organizing humanitarian help (even now, during the war in Ukraine). Hence the documentaries. I rarely shed a tear but oh boy those movies are really touching, the people shown in them kind of remind me of all the elderly people I have known who had to experience the atrocities of WWII.

This series is the BEST visual aid to the recounting of the moments that happened before-during and after the accident

Some dramatic liberties were taken, but in the main the story is very accurate. It's so haunting to watch characters, representing real men & women, whom you know are utterly doomed. Chernobyl happened while I was still in High School so I was aware of it and knew it was bad, but didn't know the full story and the USSR was very secretive about the whole affair, but measurable radiation drifted on the air currents into Western Europe. This story is about a handful of genuine Russian and Ukrainian and other Soviet heroes who basically saved civilization as we know it.

Five of his cassette tapes were marked "for Gubarev" and after the suicide that Gubarev guy insisted on getting them from KGB investigators. He had good connections in right places, so KGB redacted classified data on tapes and passed them to Gubarev who published them in the Pravda newspaper.

Radiation poisoning is probably one of the most horrible ways to die. It is about as close as humans can come to actual zombification. Your body is literally decomposing from the inside out.

"What is the cost of lies?" is such a good opening line for this series, kinda the overarching theme

At 5min mark he asks, do you taste metal? Having a metallic taste is a clear sign of being exposed to radiation. Second would be a sunburn at said location of exposure. Maybe K-19 - the Widowmaker is a good movie aswell. Also based on a true story. Involving the first nuclear submarine.

these reactions are gonna be so dope

Probably one of the best mini-series ever created right along side Band of Brothers. Craig Mazen who also helped write Last of Us show came up with this.