- [Narrator] Chernobyl poses
this deceptively complex
question in its opening moments:
- What is the cost of lies?
- [Narrator] And spends the
ensuing five hours answering it
by beautifully and brutally depicting
the human cost of statecraft.
On this IMDbrief we'll split
atoms of fact from fiction
in the stunning HBO miniseries.
The top rated series on IMDb is Chernobyl,
and creator Craig Mazin began an obsession
with the 1986 nuclear disaster
after an innocuous internet search,
"Why did Chernobyl explode?"
The answer didn't come easy,
as aspects of the accident
are still shrouded
under Soviet era politicking and coverups.
- Statecraft, Legasov. Statecraft.
- [Narrator] Not to mention that Mazin
isn't a nuclear scientist,
so he had to find easy to understand,
yet dramatically satisfying techniques
to expose what went wrong,
and who was to blame.
- Ask the bosses whatever
you want, you'll get the lie.
And I will get the bullet.
- [Narrator] Since
deception and statecraft
did not meet their end
with the fall of the USSR,
Mazin summarizes his intent
for telling the story of Chernobyl now,
and in the way that he did by admitting,
"I'm not sure humans are equipped
"to move through existence
without lying to each other...
"It's the big lies that we have
to be really, really careful about...
"Because in the end, the truth
doesn't care... It just is."
- Every lie we tell incurs
a debt to the truth.
Sooner or later that debt is paid.
- [Narrator] The timeline
of the control room
is very accurate and based
on the SKALA process computer's report
of every command, although
one minor detail was omitted.
The initial power drop
may have been a mistake
made by inexperienced engineer Toptunov,
but it was assistant chief
engineer Dyatlov's demand
to fix it "by any means necessary"
that set the downward spiral in motion.
- Raise the power.
- I would like you to
record your command in--
- Raise the power.
- [Narrator] Valery
Legasov was a huge part
of the effort to bring
these facts to light,
but, and this one came as a surprise,
he was not at the Soviet show trial
of Dyatlov and his
conspirators at Chernobyl.
- We will resume tomorrow with--
- Let him finish.
Let him finish.
- [Narrator] Dozens of
scientists aided Legasov
in the cleanup and prevention
of further disasters,
and they were on the scene
to explain how reactor four exploded,
and to condemn Dyatlov's dangerous choices
in that chain of events.
Ulana Khomyuk was a composite
of these scientists,
and Mazin explained that he chose a woman
to symbolize the one slightly
more progressive aspect
of Soviet society at the time,
the high number of women
in science and medicine.
- I'd like to think that if I
spoke out it would be enough,
but I know how the world works.
- [Narrator] After the
actual Vienna testimony
in which Legasov described all
of Chernobyl's man made mistakes,
except for that fatal flaw
in the safety shutdown switch
that essentially ignited
the nuclear core explosion,
Legasov worked within the USSR
to expose the truth about
that avoidable defect
in the control panel's AZ-5 button,
and his peers in the scientific community
responded by ostracizing him.
- In a just world I'd be shot
for my lies, but not for this.
Not for the truth.
- Scientists...
And your idiot obsession with reasons.
- [Narrator] His suicide,
two years to the date after Chernobyl,
brought attention to this crusade,
and the audio tapes of
his confessions spread
throughout the world to become
an undeniable demand for nuclear reform.
- That is the most
important thing, general.
- [Narrator] For more trending
stories and some true tales,
stay tuned to imdb.com/imdbrief.
