Trivia / Chernobyl

• Approval of God: Many survivors of the Chernobyl disaster approved the series's portrayal of the disaster, including General Nikolai Tarakanov, who commanded the liquidators on the roof, and some of the surviving Russian miners from the digging operation beneath Reactor #4. The primary people who didn't like it were (naturally) the Russian government and their mouthpieces, the notable exception being Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. Of course, Medinsky's father was one of the liquidators.
• Banned in China:
  • Rather predictably, the series was criticized in Russia for being anti-Russian propaganda, and the Communists of Russia^note Confusingly enough, this is a separate political party from the better-known Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which is a direct continuation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. launched a lawsuit against the creators. Though it's still reportedly very popular among the country's citizenry.
  • Became literally true with the Trope Namer, after Chinese citizens began noting the similarities between the USSR's response to Chernobyl and the Chinese government's response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Dyatlov never says the oft-quoted "He's delusional, take him to the infirmary"; rather, it's, "Take him to the infirmary," before clarifying a few seconds later to Akimov that, "He's delusional." He does also say "He's in shock, get him out of here," which the infirmary quote may be confused for.
• California Doubling:
  • The series was mainly shot at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania, a decommissioned RBMK plant very similar to the one in Chernobyl^note In fact, an incident at Ignalina in 1983 led to the specific RBMK design flaw which led to the Chernobyl disaster — power surges caused by the graphite tips on the control rods — being discovered (and covered up) by the Soviets for the first time.. Many of the Lithuanian crewmembers were old enough to remember life in the Soviet era and helped make sure that they got the little details right.
  • The city of Kaunas doubles for every urban area depicted in the series, including Pripyat, Kiev, Minsk and Moscow.
• The Cast Showoff: Russian-born Swedish actor Alexej Manvelov, who plays Garo, also sings the rendition of the Russian folk song "Chorny Voron" ("Black Crow") that plays in Episode 4.
• Casting Gag: Soviet Coal Minister Mikhail Schadov is played by Michael Colgan, who played Leonid Toptunov (the reactor operator played by Robert Emms) in the "Chernobyl" episode of the British miniseries Surviving Disaster.
• Creator's Oddball:
  • Craig Mazin had previously written comedies such as Scary Movie 3, Superhero Movie, Identity Thief and the two sequels to The Hangover, with another oddball The Huntsman: Winter's War.
  • Even director Johan Renck qualifies: While he's directed some TV episodes in the latter years (for shows like Breaking Bad and Vikings, for example), most of his resume consists of directing music videos.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Jared Harris was 56 when he portrayed Valery Legasov, who was 49 when the Chernobyl disaster happened and 51 when he hung himself.
  • 25-year old Leonid Toptunov is often teased by his co-workers for his young age and appearance. His actor, Robert Emms, was 32 at the time of filming.
  • Vasily Ignatenko was also 25 when the Chernobyl disaster happened. His actor, Adam Nagaitis, was also 32 at the time of filming.
  • Sam Troughton was 41 when he played the 33-year old Aleksandr Akimov.
• Deleted Scene:
  • The script included a scene where another reactor worker, Gorbachenko, carried a wounded colleague (Shashenok) and realized later that he had left a hand-shaped radiation burn over his back. While Gorbachenko is told to find Shashenok in the show, the latter is never shown.
  • The scene with Yuvchenko meeting Kudryavtsev and Proskuryakov in the corridor went for longer, with Yuvchenko being asked if Degtyarenko needed a doctor and Yuvchenko saying "no".
  • Mazin wanted to include the moment when radiation was detected in a Swedish nuclear plant and identified as coming from the Soviet Union, but it would be too similar to Ulana's introductory scene and he obviously wanted to reference the Soviet scientists that discovered the cover-up over the foreigners that did it independently.
  • The original script for Episode 3 featured a May 1 parade in Minsk, held as scheduled in order to transmit normalcy. The party official that meets Khomyuk in the previous episode would phone his superiors and express worry because winds had been blowing from Chernobyl, but he would be told to join the parade as expected.
  • Dyatlov was going to have a delirious dream while hospitalized. He would see his son, who died from leukemia after Dyatlov was involved in another radiation accident at a nuclear submarine base in The '60s. An unnamed character would later dig up Dyatlov's file and speculate that his recklesness came from a desire to "conquer the atom" after the incident. The scene would have been meant to cast Dyatlov in a slightly sympathetic light, implying that his stubbornness and refusal to accept the truth stemmed partially from an obession with "defeating" what had killed his son, and parts of the scene with Dyatlov being delirious can be seen in a trailer. However, Mazin cut this subplot entirely after deciding that it was armchair psychology speculation and that it detracted from the timeline of the Chernobyl disaster.
  • Another scene (taken from the book Voices of Chernobyl) would reveal that one of the puppies was still alive after being thrown in the pile. The soldiers would then try to Mercy Kill it before it was engulfed in cement, only to realize they were out of bullets. Mazin hated the scene while he was writing it already and ended cutting it after filming because it felt too sadistic in an already bleak arc.
  • The formation of the Elephant's Foot, a extremely radioactive formation of silca and traces of uranium created by the accident in one the plant's steam corridors, was scripted, but it is unknown if it was filmed.
  • In the script for Episode 4, the episode would have an extended ending in which Pavel greets a new fresh-faced recruit.
  • The script for Episode 5 would have featured Fomin's suicide attempt prior to the trial. This also would have led to a scene in which Shcherbina dotes on his four-year-old grandson while discussing the situation with Legasov.
  • The script also makes clear that Zinchenko dies, showing her vomiting and blistering from her hand as Pripyat is evacuated. She is later mentioned among the dead in another scene where Khomyuk goes through the statements of the victims.
• Development Gag: In Episode 5, Dyatlov chides the staff and threatens to ensure that they never work at another nuclear power plant ever again, listing the plants at Kursk, Ignalina, Leningrad, and Novovoronezh. The series was actually shot at the RBMK nuclear power plant at Ignalina.
• Disowned Adaptation: The Real Life Lyudmila Ignatenko ^note  note that her name is generally spelt differently in Real Life to how it is the shows' material and credits gave an interview to the BBC in late 2019 saying she feels "hurt and uneasy" with the HBO miniseries and its depiction of events.
  • According to Lyudmila, an unnamed HBO representative had been in touch with her whilst the miniseries was in development seeking her input, which came to nothing. Lyudmila only found out more about the series when advertisements started appearing as it was about to air. In particular, she was completely unaware that she was to be one of the main characters.
  • As a result of the series' broadcast the in 2019, with the inevitable upsurge in interest in matters related to the the disaster, Lyudmila found herself bombarded with journalists' requests for interviews. The invasion of her privacy became so bad that she was forced to leave Kyiv and live with her mother in the countryside.
  • When she finally watched the series for herself, she criticised it for "a lot of unfair, incorrect sequences." In particular, she objected to the scene were Vasily is shown screaming in agony as the effects of the ARS take hold. Lyudmila described Vasily as "calm, patient, measured" throughout the ordeal. ^note However, surviving doctors and nurses who had written their own statements over the years and had named Vasily claimed he alternated between calmness and agony, and Lyudmila's interaction with him was controlled to prevent 'panic'. Indeed, the alternating reactions of pain and calmness line up with ARS and the carefully timed interactions between patients and their loved ones was also long alleged as being enforced by the party.
• Fake Russian: None of the main cast is actually from the former Soviet Union. They're mostly natives of the UK and Ireland, with a couple of Swedes in the midst (Stellan Skarsgård, David Dencik, Fares Fares) who speak in a variety of British accents. Many of the extras are Lithuanian also, due to filming taking place at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant near the Lithuanian town of Visaginas.
• In Memoriam: A title card after the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue reads "In memory of all who suffered and sacrificed."
• Life Imitates Art:
  • The popularity of the series (including among Russian citizens) led to it being harshly criticized by the Russian government, who, in a very Dyatlovesque move, insisted that the (scrupulously researched and praised for its accuracy even by actual Chernobyl survivors) series was a work of "Western propaganda" and immediately set about commissioning their own Chernobyl series showing the "truth" that the reactor was actually sabotaged by the CIA. Which basically just goes to prove Mazin's point. Nothing has come out of it.
  • One month after the series concluded, a massive fire took place in a power plant of Moscow. And two months later, it was announced that a radiation leak detected over Europe in 2017 had been identified as originating from Mayak (where a nuclear incident larger and deadlier than Chernobyl already took place in 1957, but the Soviet Union managed to keep secret for decades). Then the state-owned corporation Rosatom denied these findings...
  • Parallels were inevitably made between the events of the series and the COVID-19 Pandemic which enveloped the world just several months after the original broadcast, especially when some governments (especially the U.S. under the Trump Administration) insisted that everything was fine and discouraged the population from sheltering in place, avoiding superspreader events and, later, taking mandated vaccinations.
• Newbie Boom: See The Red Stapler entry below. Chernobyl and the Exclusion Zone already had a fairly decent base of enthusiasts and tourists that witnessed a significant increase in numbers after the series aired.
• Orphaned Reference: Two downplayed examples, both due to information about character backstories being cut.
  • Anatoly Dyatlov had worked on nuclear submarines in Komsomolsk-on-Amur as a young man, and had been present for a nuclear accident there, suffering radiation sickness from a dose of 1 Sv.^note  Which is substantial. It's 50% more than any energency worker received at Fukushima, and it's a "lifetime dose" for NASA astronauts, who wouldn't be receiving it all at once. Incidentally, that previous dose makes it all the more remarkable that Dyatlov then received a nearly 4 Sv dose, lethal in 50% of cases, at Chernobyl and still survived nine more years. When he claims "I've seen worse" in the early minutes of the disaster, he's not lying or blowing smoke; it would have been hard to believe at that point that Chernobyl was far more catastrophic. But with none of that backstory present in the final show, he comes off more dismissive and uncaring than may have been intended.
  • Boris Shcherbina was the son of a railroad worker and graduated from the Kharkov Institute of Railroad Transport Engineers. He spent over a decade as the Minister of Construction of Oil and Gas Industries. In "Please Remain Calm", Shcherbina springs his trap on Fomin by saying that while he doesn't know much about nuclear reactors (which should have graphite in the reactor, not outside it, showing that the reactor did explode), he knows a lot about concrete (which Fomin is trying to claim is what the graphite Shcherbina saw actually is). While it's easy to infer that that knowledge would come from past experience, nothing about that experience is ever mentioned.
• Playing Against Type:
  • A possible example of podcasting against type: the show's official podcast is presented by Peter Sagal, better known to NPR listeners as the host of the humorous quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
  • Paul Ritter is probably much better known for his comedy work in television than for serious dramatic roles; here he plays a pathologically superior braggart and bully with terrifying zeal.
• The Red Stapler: The miniseries has sparked a renewed interest in the Chernobyl disaster, with many people coming forward on social media and recounting their stories about it. It has also triggered a surge in tourism for the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
• Sleeper Hit: The show premiered to so-so ratings, despite being promoted during the final episodes of Game of Thrones. However, word of mouth soon spread and every episode since has been higher-rated than the last. It also has gained the top popular vote for any TV series ever on IMDb.
• Throw It In!:
  • The scene in Episode 5 where Shcherbina remarks on a caterpillar crawling on his hand was not scripted, and was improvised with a real one that the crew happened to find on the set.
  • The moment in the trial where the microphone is too far away from Legasov and a soldier rushes to place it correctly was not scripted. The microphone was genuinely misplaced, and director Johan Renck thought to send one of the actors playing soldiers to fix it without stopping recording.
  • While rehearsing the same scene, Jared Harris accidentally dropped one of the cards used in the lecture. Harris, Mazin, and Renck all agreed to keep the accident instead of using the "good" take.
• Tourist Bump:
  • Tourist demands to visit Pripyat and the safe parts of Chernobyl increased by 30% in the months that followed the broadcasting of the series.
  • Ditto with the Lithuanian sites used as stand-ins for Ukrainian cities and Chernobyl, the Ignalina nuclear power plant especially.
• Underage Casting: David Dencik was only 43 when he played Mikhail Gorbachev, who was 55 during the Chernobyl disaster.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the beginning, the cast was going to speak English with a vague Eastern European accent, but this was changed when the creators realized that they were too preoccupied affecting the accents to portray their characters properly, and the result sounded inappropriately comical - hence Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian characters speaking with a variety of Western European accents.
  • Mazin was originally contracted for six episodes but ended combining two scripted episodes in one.
  • Per the six-part plan, the line "It's not 3 rem. It's 15,000." would have been the last said in the second episode.
  • The construction of the infamous containment Sarcophagus around Reactor 4, the building of which was rushed and haphazard due to the radiation, is not shown. A picture of the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement, which replaced parts of that structure and was completed in 2010, is shown during the final episode's epilogue.
  • In the script, Yuvchenko carries his son on a toy cart, instead of over his shoulders.
  • The script also goes further into Zinchenko's fate. While in the show she is last seen next to Vasily while futilely trying to object to the hospital's evacuation, in the script she is treating Mikhail and Oksana's children when the evacuation begins, and almost gets in a fight due to her refusal to evacuate. Later, she begins blistering from her reddened hand, like Misha, and vomits on a street bin as she heads for the evacuation bus. A scene in the final episode, also scripted but not included in the show, counts her among the victims of ARS.
  • The first episode's script had a slightly longer version of Akimov's and Toptunov's attempts to restart the water flow into the reactor, showing that, unbeknownst to them, the water was only making it as far as the next room before leaking out and uselessly draining away. In the finished series, their attempts being All for Nothing is only inferred by Khomyuk's comment in the second episode that every pipe in the building was ruptured in the explosion.
  • According to the first episode's script, Legasov would leave extra pet food for his cat before hanging himself. A consultant pointed that there was no market pet food in the Soviet Union, they just got food scraps. So it was changed to Legasov leaving extra scraps.

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