‘The Chernobyl Podcast’
Like many in my generation, I was never really taught the intricate details about the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in school. I knew that it happened and that the land was still irradiated, but the textbooks never really delved into more than a few sentences.
I gather similar situations are why HBO’s “Chernobyl” miniseries resonates with so many people. A fascinating docu-drama, the first of five episodes begins instantly with the explosion, as the rest then deal with preventing nuclear meltdown, evacuating Pripyat and mitigating radiation poisoning along with governmental denial and cover-up. It is worth a watch, but even more worthwhile is the show’s companion podcast.
In it, creator Craig Mazin and “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” host Peter Sagal break down where the show came from, why and how Mazin created it, how closely the retelling tracks history and where and why it differs.
One thing Mazin addresses right away is why the show doesn’t have Russian accents. He figured it would distract from the acting and be too comical. Instead the British actors keep their British accents, thereby illustrating how the citizens would sound to each other since foreign ears are what usually recognize accents. However, all Cyrillic text is preserved and not translated. Since it is impossible to film at Chernobyl, those Soviet-era signs and other set pieces were staged in other former Soviet countries, where the efficient governmental architecture is virtually the same.
It also functions as a recap show with each episode correlating to a part of the series, but it recently came out with a special sixth episode with Jared Harris, who plays Valery Legasov, to discuss the show at a more macro level. While Legasov was a real person, the podcast explains that Emily Watson’s Ulana Khomyuk is a composite character who represents the other scientists working to figure out how the explosion happened.
For a television show focused on spotlighting the truth, to have an audio component that peels back the curtain even further is a delight.