The Chernobyl Podcast

I found out about the Chernobyl miniseries a bit late but absolutely loved it and odd enough I remembered that I was in Europe the summer of 1986 I was 10 years old. While visiting my family and grandparents in my home country of Greece and remembering that the radiation had reached to many parts of Greece as well as other places in Europe. Needing to wash our fruits and vegetables with a special liquid provided by the government to make ourselves feel better about eating potential contaminated food. I feel sad for everyone who was affected and died because of this horrible situation. The only note I would have for the host is that this is a mini series and not a TV show. Hearing you call it a TV show somewhat degraded the real life story.

Overall, this was an enlightening show. A few production issues did take me out of it — the voices of the host and subject and often difficult to tell apart, and they are very muffled most of the time (especially episodes 1 and 3). You can really hear how excited the Mazin gets when he talks about the history of the Chernobyl facility, the Russian politics and structure, the world as it was in the late 1980s, etc. It’s clear he and the show creators took great care in respectfully representing the stories they collected and folded into the narrative. That said, this also served to highlight some of the choices they made (unrequited relationships, unfinished storylines) that I personally found missing from the show. But you get a good sense of the muted tone of “Chernobyl” based on its mild creator, and it was a very nice companion piece to the show at large.

Chernobyl is a remarkable mini series, and this podcast combines excellent context from both the real events as well as the production of the show.

What are the cost of lies? This series is more relevant than ever. We’re facing more “ inconvenient truths” than ever and need a reminder about the dangers of ignoring them. This podcast effectively advanced my understanding of the disaster at Chernobyl and life in an authoritarian state. Great hosts! ( I kept waiting for Peter Sagan to tell a joke but enjoyed him in this role. )