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Original poster

Did anyone else have to turn Chernobyl off?

75 replies

HarryPotterFan436 · 23/05/2019 22:31

I got half an hour into the first episode and I have had to turn it off as I found it so harrowing. It was so well done and so interesting but heart breaking at the same time. I had to switch it off at the point where so many people were standing watching the fire and they took the baby out the pram. Has anyone else had to turn this off or are you managing to watch it?

OP posts:
PonyPals · 23/05/2019 23:55

Was living in Ukraine when it happened. I remember mum telling us to come inside as soon as it would rain and no washing to be hung outside. That's the extent as to what we were told. I have so many family members with cancer

Gingernaut · 23/05/2019 23:56

I remember it.

It was awful.

With the Soviet press completely under the control of the USSR government, there was very little information.

It was an extraordinary admission, when the government admitted the explosion and asked for help.

were broadcasting as the disaster unfolded.
1stmumma · 23/05/2019 23:56

I was so close! It made me so angry too. Third episode in now though and glad i carried on watching.

ElizaPancakes · 24/05/2019 00:05

I haven't but there's a huge poster advertising it near by. Coincidentally I'm reading a book with true accounts of the survivors. It's harrowing. Called Voices from Chernobyl if anyone's interested.

I have just watched the trailer. I want to watch it, call it morbid curiosity.

Original poster
HarryPotterFan436 · 24/05/2019 14:11

I may try the book and see if I can cope with reading that.
Were you very close to the power plant ponypals? It must have been quite terrifying for people living there if they realised what was happening.
I find the before and after photos of Pripyat quite heart wrenching. Never seen any videos though.

OP posts:
KinkyHair · 24/05/2019 15:27

I had to turn off episode 3. It was truly awful.

ILoveDaveGrohl · 25/05/2019 11:24

@HarryPotterFan436 watch this!

FrenchFancie · 25/05/2019 11:54

We don’t have sky Atlantic so I hope we can watch this elsewhere some time.
I was 6 or 7 when it happened, we flew home from west Germany a couple of days afterwards, which meant that we’d flown through the cloud of radiation. Luckily we’ve had no ill effects.
I’ve always been strangely fascinated by Prypiat and would love to go.

AuntieMaggie · 25/05/2019 11:59

The end of episode 2 did it for me - that would be my worst fear. I do think that there should be more education in this country about it - so many lessons to learn and I didn't realise how much the UK was affected.

Adversecamber22 · 25/05/2019 12:00

Threads was petrifying, i remember watchjng it as a young teenager. But it was a time when there were public information films on tv on how to survive in an attack and there was a genuine fear of an attack. Raymond Briggs wrote a beautiful, touching but upsetting book called when the wind blows, I’m pretty sure it was made in to animated short as well about a nuclearattackon Britain. I recommend this for both adults and children. Especially if your youngsters are asking about those events.

I have watched the first episode of Chernobyl and do intend watching the rest. We think DS will be interested in watching it so we are waiting for him to return after half term as he is away.

comeongeorge · 25/05/2019 13:35

I’m interested in watching it.
Do they show any pets dying?
Please don’t think I value animal life more than human but I’m heavily pregnant and hormonal and pet deaths is a trigger for bouts of crying at the moment, not sure why as this hasn’t been an issue before.

Woollycardi · 25/05/2019 14:03

There are animals dying, and I found it quite upsetting that they had to leave their pets behind when they were finally evacuated, there is a dog running after his owner as they leave on the buses...the whole thing is incredibly sobering and I found it shocking to watch how deeply in denial they were when it initially happened.

CitadelsofScience · 25/05/2019 14:12

I've watched the first two episodes just waiting for the right frame of mind to watch the third.
I wasn't shocked because I remember watching the news as a teenager but it is harrowing watching. The attitude of the people in charge of the plant was breathtakingly arrogant about the reactor and its core. That I found extremely hard to stomach, the lack of care about human life.

SpeckofStardust · 25/05/2019 14:23

I think the worst and most sobering parts have been not the visuals of radiation burns, horrific though they are, but the understated stoicism and heroism of the ordinary people. The three who went in to do what needed to be done to get the pumps working. As the batteries died on their flashlights, I was crying. Then the miners working to install the heat exchanger under the concrete pad. A rough, tough, black-humored lot, who knew what they were being asked to do was a death sentence but they went anyway. They also knew the ‘safety’ masks and clothes they were issued were virtually useless for protection from radiation so they stripped naked to work in that intense heat because it really didn’t make any difference. Heartbreaking.

DuggeesWoggle · 25/05/2019 14:31

We've been watching this - awful, terrifying and yet such a good, well-made drama. The use of a sort of deep rumbling sound in the background really ramps up the sense of dread. The third episode was horrific, seeing the suffering of those poor firefighters and the really basic conditions in the hospitals who were just totally overwhelmed.

I think what I found most shocking is just the lack of any real protective gear for any of the people going anywhere near the plant. I think there was maybe one scene where people wore full suits, when they were going to try and go back in to stop the core flooding and contaminating the river (I think, I can't remember exactly what they were doing). Everyone else got flimsy masks and nothing to shield their hands or bodies. Did the authorities not know how to protect people or just not care? It was just the whole lack of panic generally that got me, all the while the radiation was spreading. I was only tiny at the time it happened so don't really remember it, just lots of talk about the aftermath ov

The nuclear physicist guy's description of what would happen to those who had been exposed was truly chilling.

Fairylea · 25/05/2019 14:39

We’ve been watching it. We found / find it interesting but weirdly enough neither of us are as distressed / upset by it as others seem to be. It doesn’t mean we don’t think the whole thing was absolutely awful but the drama / programme hasn’t been as awful to us as others have made it out to be. It’s definitely been educational from a historical perspective, dd aged 16 has learnt a lot.

Fairylea · 25/05/2019 14:40

(As awful to watch I mean).

gubbsywubbsy · 25/05/2019 14:45

We are watching it but what I can't understand is why some actors are speaking in a Russian accent and some aren't . You would think they would get them all to or not bother.. is there a reason for this . I'm also distracted by the weird casting ..
aside from that it is harrowing to watch and an eye opener as I was a child when it happened to so although I knew it happened I didn't understand the enormity Of it .

SpeckofStardust · 25/05/2019 14:52

I haven’t heard any Russian accents at all - which characters have you noticed doing that? As I understand it the show runners deliberately chose not to have the actors use anything but their own accents because there’s no need to distinguish a character as Russian because they’re all Russian ifyswim and because they felt it would be too easy to slip into parody accents.

icebearforpresident · 25/05/2019 14:56

There’s a podcast to accompany the series called The Chernobyl Podcast. It’s a conversation with the writer basically breaking down the episode, what happened and the real events they have depicted.

In one episode he made a comment along the lines of ‘it could only have happened in the soviet union’, both the accident and the aftermath. Can you imagine anywhere else where an evacuation like that would have been people calmly lining up to get on a a bus with only one suitcase having abandoned their pets to who knows where? Men going naked to dig a tunnel under a melting down nuclear reactor? Certainly it wouldn’t have happened like that here.

The fireman’s wife is a real character. The scientist, played by Jared Harris, is a real character. Emily Mortimer’s character is based on a few different people. It’s amazing, and fucking terrifying, how accurate the series is.

TodoDoingDone · 25/05/2019 16:20

I haven't watched it yet.I heard a BBC beyond today podcast on Chernobyl, which was interesting and seemed to downplay the falloutHmmanother one on radioactive blueberries, which contradicted the beyond today podcast.

VeeringTowardsMuffins · 25/05/2019 16:34

Truly shocking.

Especially Trevor from Eastenders’ willy in ep 3.....😉

GenuineNonsense · 25/05/2019 16:39

We're watching it, fascinating and harrowing at the same time, but like others are saying, I think it's important to watch.

@comeongeorge apparently episode 4 is particularly bad for animal/pet death, just so you're aware.

Rubytinsleslippers · 25/05/2019 16:45

We are watching. Horrific but as pp said, if we don't know what happened how can it be prevented in the future.
I also watched Threads as a student and still haunts me.
Really important viewing.

UCOinanOCG · 25/05/2019 16:49

I've been watching it. It isn't an easy watch but it really gets over the full horror of what happened and the way it was dealt with. I was in my early 20's when it happened and remember it vividly.