History Series / Chernobyl

* PyrrhicVictory: Although it's the only victory possible under the circumstances (the whole of Russia doesn't collapse from radiation poisoning), this is invoked numerous times, with characters being sent to awful and inevitable deaths simply because it's the only way to prevent a huge collapse that might lead the whole world into TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. In the end, the knowledge that the disaster was eventually contained (for a given definition of "contained", since Pripyat still has to be evacuated) is only a token consolation for the hundreds of thousands of lives ended or ruined by the disaster.

* InTheOriginalKlingon: [[StateSec KGB]] Deputy Chairman Charkhov repeats the old Russian proverb, "Trust but verify", then remarks on the irony that the Americans credit it to their own [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan President Reagan]]. Inverted in this case, since the saying actually ''did'' originate in Russia [[note]]In fact, it rhymes handily.[[/note]], but was repeated by an American academic to Reagan, who liked it so much he used it as a CatchPhrase in nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviet Union (much to Gorbachev's annoyance).

* RevealingCoverUp: During the initial meeting between Shcherbina, Legasov, Bryukhanov, and Fomin, the latter two are confident of being able to talk their way past Shcherbina, who knows nothing about nuclear reactors. But then Shcherbina asks (informed by Legasov) why there is graphite outside the building, which could only have come from inside the reactor core. Bryukhanov freezes for a moment, then turns to Fomin and asks him to explain. Shcherbina may not know anything about nuclear reactors, but he is enough of an experienced bureaucrat to know when someone is trying to cover his ass.

* ShootTheTelevision: After his phone conversation with the Kremlin, where it is explained that they were sent sub-par equipment because the Kremlin refused to admit to the German company supplying it just how radioactive the Chernobyl site was, Shcherbina emerges from his trailer, trailing the smashed remains of the phone in his hand. He drops it to the ground and calmly informs his assistant that they will need a new one.

* ReclaimedByNature: In the final episode, during a recess in the trial of Bryukhanov, Fomin, and Dyatlev (which has been ordered held in Chernobyl to illustrate to the rest of the country how safe the town has become) Shcherbina sees a tiny caterpillar crawling across his pant leg and picks it up with his finger, remarking, ''"it's beautiful."'' [[note]]The caterpillar was not part of the screenplay, but was improvised during shooting.[[/note]] Even if humans cannot live in Chernobyl for another 24,000 years, wildlife is already adapting to be able to do so.

* CannedOrdersOverLoudspeaker: The infamous ''"Vnimanie, vnimanie..."'' announcement blared over [[LoudspeakerTruck loudspeakers mounted on military vehicles]] during the evacuation of Pripyat in the second episode. The audio used is the same from the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l3g3m8Vrgs real-life evacuation]] and was featured prominently in the series's trailers.

* InTheOriginalKlingon: [[StateSec KGB]] Deputy Chairman Charkhov repeats the old Russian proverb, "Trust but verify", then remarks on the irony that the Americans credit it to their own President Reagan. Inverted in this case, since the saying actually did originate in Russia [[note]]In fact, it rhymes handily.[[/note]], but was repeated by an American academic to Reagan, who liked it so much he used it as a CatchPhrase in nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviet Union (much to Gorbachev's annoyance).

** [[TropeAversion Averted]] hard in the final conversation between Shcherbina and Legasov. Boris says that, in the end he was just another ObstructiveBureaucrat, and scientists like Legasov made the real difference. Legasov says he couldn't be more wrong: a dozen scientists would have seen and reported the same things as him, but without Shcherbina's willingness to listen to them, and his superpower of getting the vast Soviet bureaucracy to actually ''do things'', it would have ended up like all the rest of the reports- ignored and covered up, while the problem kept getting worse.

** The heat exchanger the miners installed at significant risk to their health never ended up being used. Survivors are still proud of their work, because [[https://youtu.be/jo2X-zRmiEU?t=146 it's better safe]] than ''really'' sorry.
** Averted hard in the final conversation between Shcherbina and Legasov. Boris says that, in the end he was just another ObstructiveBureaucrat, and scientists like Legasov made the real difference. Legasov says he couldn't be more wrong: a dozen scientists would have seen and reported the same things as him, but without Shcherbina's willingness to listen and superpower of getting the Soviet government to actually do things, it would have ended up like all the rest of the reports- ignored and covered up, while the problem kept getting worse.

** Akimov and Toptunov are instructed to manually fill the core with water by hand-turning the cranks, while standing nearly chest high in irradiated water. By this point, both are aware that the core has exploded, meaning they're killing themselves for nothing. As if to add insult to injury, the camera pans over to the water pointlessly spilling out over the exposed core.
** All attempts to cover up the disaster and save face, habits left over from Stalin's rule, fail to do ''anything'' except make more people suffer and embarrass the nation even further. Hiding things from Legasov and Scherbina just made Bryukhanov and Fomin look stupid, hiding things from Gorbachev was completely unnecessary because he's a ReasonableAuthorityFigure, and hiding things from the Western nations didn't work because the cloud of radiation moved over Western Europe and was detected by scientists who ''didn't'' have to fear censure, and Western authorities were savvy enough about Soviet ass-covering to realize that the mere ''fact'' that the Soviets were admitting Chernobyl ''was'' a problem (instead of denying everything) meant that they were hiding something ''really'' serious.
** A relatively minor one when weighed against the total human cost of the disaster, but Sitnikov's death certainly qualifies. When he reports the presence of the graphite debris he is attacked and scolded for suggesting the obvious. When Dyatlov falls sick after volunteering to inspect the reactor from the roof, Fomin volunteers Sitnikov, who tries to refuse but ultimately can't. He's essentially sent to his death. Afterward, during the silent montage at the end of the episode, Bryukhanov and Fomin are seen still grilling and berating a shell-shocked Sitnikov, his skin beet-red from radiation. The information he has been forced to give his life to obtain has fallen on the ears of the willfully deaf. Sitnikov's defeated thousand-yard stare says everything.

''Chernobyl'' is a 2019 {{historical|Fiction}} {{cosmic horror|Story}} {{disaster|Movie}} miniseries chronicling the [[UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} infamous nuclear power plant accident]] and its aftermath. It is the first [[InternationalCoproduction co-production]] between Creator/{{HBO}} and Creator/{{Sky}}, created and written by Creator/CraigMazin and directed by Johan Renck. Music/HildurGudnadottir composed the soundtrack.

** The construction of the sarcophage. Though it worked to contain the spread of radiation, the area of Pripyat is still lethally contaminated and will be so for years, additionally, the concrete sarcophage itself had a set life of 50 years and had to be replaced in 2016.

* DisasterDominoes: Several factors had to align in order for the Chernobyl disaster to occur, as listed on the [[{{UsefulNotes/Chernobyl}} Useful Notes]] page. Episode 5 serves as a recount of all of those factors: human, scientific and political.[[note]]The short version: RBMK reactors are designed with a positive feedback loop ("positive void co-efficient") which is dangerous, but produces a lot of electricity cheaply. The gas Xenon-135 is a byproduct of the nuclear reaction, which in large quantities will slow the reaction – but at normal reaction levels, the neutron emissions being produced by the reaction outpace the rate at which Xenon is produced, "burning" it off (once an atom of [=Xe135=] has absorbed one neutron, it will absorb no more, becoming effectively transparent to neutron radiation). The danger is that keeping the reactor in low power mode for too long will lead to a Xenon buildup - the "Xenon Pit" mentioned by Toptunov - that "stalls" the reactor. Due to a series of scheduling screwups for political reasons, this is exactly what happened, when the reactor administration left it in low-power mode for too long as part of a safety test, combined with making the less well-trained night shift perform the test, without even being told in advance or given time to prepare for it. When a reactor stalls, you're supposed to '''gradually''' build it back up to normal reaction levels, which takes 24 hours. Instead, the reactor chief ordered the engineers to just '''yank out all the control rods at once'''. The reaction indeed restarted, but due to the feedback loop nature of RBMK reactors, it started increasing too fast. In a last desperate attempt to regain control, the crew hit the emergency shutdown button (AZ-5) which automatically shoves all the control rods back into the reactor to shut it down... not knowing that an inherent design flaw meant the rods were tipped with graphite, which will briefly '''accelerate''' the reaction. Functioning at normal temperatures, the graphite wouldn't have been a problem, but at dangerously high temperatures, the graphite was enough to, in a split-second, '''exponentially increase''' the rate of reaction. This dramatic increase instantly evaporated all the water in the core into steam, which ruptured the fuel rod channels and jammed the graphite tips in place; with nowhere else to go, the graphite continually accelerated the reaction until, five seconds later, the pressure got too high and the lid exploded. Now exposed to the air, the elements inside the reactor combined with oxygen, causing a second, ''much worse'' explosion, this time destroying the building and sending the radiation into the air.[[/note]]

** The complexity of Russian naming conventions is flattened down to a simple [[Commieland "Comrade Lastname"]] for everyone. This avoids both the problem of the viewer figuring out, for example, who this "Dyatlov" guy could be after five minutes of dialogue addressed to Anatoly Stepanovich, and also the OneSteveLimit problems when Anatoly Andreyevich (Sitnikov) shows up.

* OneSteveLimit: Both averted, because it's BasedOnATrueSfory where many of the people involved happened to share names, and played straight, because everyone refers to everyone else by their last names all the time. You'd never know from the show, for instance, that Dyatlov and Sitnikov both happened to be called "Anatoly".

[[caption-width-right:350:''"Vnimanie, vnimanie..."'']]

** The creepy music, composed using recordings from an actual power plant and supplemented by Geiger counters, helicopters, and static, fuses seamlessly with the noises of the reactor, both while it is working and as it basically withers and dies after the accident. This creates a background ambiance that greatly enhances the creepy atmosphere.

** Legasov has an [[TranquilFury understated]] one in Episode 3. By that time, he's already dealt with more than his share of ObstructiveBureaucrat{{s}}, KnowNothingKnowItAll{{s}}, and politicians who want him to change the laws of science to fit their production schedules. He finally reaches his limit when Gorbachev snaps at him to demand ''"when all this will be over!"'' Legasov doesn't raise his voice, he simply deadpans that, since Plutonium-238's radioactive half-life is 24,000 years, ''"perhaps we should just say, not within our lifetimes."'' He gives no outward sign of anger, but he no longer gives a damn about ruffling anyone's feathers.

** The heat exchanger the miners installed at significant risk to their health never ended up being used. Survivors are still proud of their work, because it's better safe than ''really'' sorry

* DeathWorld: The immediate surroundings of Reactor #4 mean certain and painful death to anyone who spends even a few seconds there, and spreads radioactive dust and debris for miles around. And it can't be truly dealt with, only sealed away.

* EldritchAbomination: In Episode 5, the audience gets a brief glimpse of the damaged control rods attached to the dislodged upper biological shield, which appears as the twisted and bent branches of a demonic tree lit by the exposed core below, which starts glowing brighter and brighter with an unearthly light as if coming alive just before it explodes and consumes everything in flames. If you want to see what it actually looks like, [[https://chnpp.gov.ua/ua/infotsentr/fotoalbom/category/27-suchasnij-stan-ob-ektu-ukrittya the official site of the power plant has pictures of the real thing.]]

** In episode 4, Legasov admits to Khomyuk that he and others knew about this flaw in the RBMK reactor, but didn't think it would be a problem because the failsafe would only act as a detonator if someone was dumb enough to bypass all the ''other'' safety measures and take a reactor to the brink of disaster, which is precisely what Dyatlov did.

* KnightInSourArmor: Discussed in the podcast as a major theme of the show; Mazin tried to depict a grim aesthetic with little in the way of beauty, and show characters who, despite their cynicism, would sacrifice their lives for it anyway. Legasov doesn't want to investigate further and blames himself for the disaster but believes he has to go on, and Shcherbina is horrified by how [[spoiler:he will die just from being near the reactor]] and thinks his role in the response and his life is fairly meaningless anyway but continues to devote himself to his job.

* NeverMyFault: As was typical in the Soviet Union, multiple characters attempt to shift the blame to someone else. The best example would be during the meeting between Bryukhanov, Fomin, and Dyatlov shortly after the accident. Dyatlov begins to summarize what he thinks happened, pointing out that they were working exactly as Fomin prescribed. Fomin then replies that Dyatlov was directly supervising when the accident occurred. The script even points out that both men immediately recognize what the other is doing.

* NoOSHACompliance: The RBMK reactor design itself. It wasn't adequately contained (unlike Western reactors, [=RBMKs=] had containment walls, but no containment roof, so if an explosion happened, it would be channeled upwards and the roof wouldn't contain it) and it had control rods (meant to decrease the speed of nuclear reactions) tipped with graphite, which ''accelerates'' nuclear reactions. This meant the control rods did literally the opposite of their job when they were inserted. This led to a runaway reaction GoingCritical (technically prompt-critical) and resulted in the roof being blown off the building and radioactive debris being scattered around.

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Deconstructed and examined; the politicians of the Soviet Union are more concerned with finding someone to blame for the unfolding catastrophe than they are with solving it, or even understanding its seriousness. This is because the governmental system of the USSR pretty much ''encourages'' everyone to just pass the buck, and the man left without a chair when the music stops is either ReassignedToAntarctica [[YouHaveFailedMe or executed.]] No one who knows the truth of the magnitude of the nuclear accident can admit it because it is political suicide at best, and ''literal'' suicide at worst.
** Deconstructed with Shcherbina Who certainly starts off that way and nearly gets himself and everyone killed by arrogantly believing they can fly right over the plant. However over the course of the series he begins to realize just how dire the situation is and eventually uses his political power to break through a lot of the bureaucracy and actually be effective.