Chernobyl

Product Ratings

About This Product

It was one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union suffered a massive explosion that released radioactive material across Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, and as far as Scandinavia and western Europe. This gripping and powerful five-part miniseries follows the tragedy from the moment of the early-morning explosion through the chaos and loss of life in the ensuing days, weeks and months. The cast includes Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson.

Product Details

Brand

Jared Harris (Actor), Stellan Skarsgård (Actor) Rated: NR Format: Blu-ray

Manufacturer

Jared Harris (Actor), Stellan Skarsgård (Actor) Rated: NR Format: Blu-ray

ASIN

B08JB1GPWV

Customer Reviews Summary

This miniseries looks quite good on 4K Blu-ray. The colors on this series are purposely muted so you are not going to see the colors "pop", that was a directorial choice, but you will be treated to a very sharp image with HDR, and since "Chernobyl" was actually shot and mastered in native 4K, you won't be watching an image up converted from 2K, but will be watching REAL 4K.This well acted and well written true story miniseries tells of the most infamous nuclear disaster in history--and tells that story unusually well.We see many different parts of the disaster from multiple points of view.We witness the events through the eyes of the nuclear operators in the control room of the reactor who followed proper procedure to stop the meltdown from happening and wound up unexpectedly triggering the explosion by doing so (completely unaware of the dangerous flaw in the reactor design that was ultimately responsible for what happened). We also witness events through the eyes of those firefighters on the ground who walked into a situation their training could never have prepared them for (and many of whom paid for that with their lives), we see it through the eyes of the investigators who were shocked to discover the directly exposed core so radioactive it was ionizing the smoke above the blasted and battered reactor building making it glow weirdly--and who then had to figure out exactly why the reactor did the seemingly impossible by exploding when all the proper safety measures were taken to prevent it. We also see events through the eyes of the scientist who discovers her government is lying about the seriousness of the accident when, in the process of her research, she finds the city she lives in is being dangerously irradiated even at such a distance from Chernobyl. And we witness it through the eyes of the nuclear investigator who eventually finds the flaw in the reactor design which caused the disaster, and then is shocked to discover that this same flaw is present in ALL Soviet built reactors--and who is later even more shocked to find that the government would rather make believe there was no flaw to save embarrassment to themselves, than to actually fix the ticking time bombs in their other reactors in order to prevent the same thing from almost surely happening again.My favorite of all was the final episode, in which the government hearing on the disaster takes place. By having the experts explain the technical details in ordinary everyday terms to the non-scientists on the government commission, the events of this tragedy are made just as clear to we the non-scientist viewers. And the explanation of what went wrong and why was utterly fascinating--the flawed emergency system to be used to stop a meltdown dead in its tracks when needed would really cause the reactor to do the opposite if it was actually used in such an emergency scenario!Although the series may have taken a while to draw me in, once it had me it never let go. I couldn't stop until I had watched it all the way to the end--and I'm so glad that I did! This series was very well done and truly eye opening!Chernobyl is an above average miniseries about a real life nuclear disaster and the 4K Blu-ray looks very good. As I mentioned earlier, Chernobyl was actually shot and mastered in native 4K, which rendered a superior image on the disc to many other offerings which are instead up converted from 2K masters.Why TV series and miniseries are usually not released on 4K Blu-ray the way movies are is a mystery to me. In the entire history of the format only Westworld, Chernobyl and Game of Thrones (and spin-off House of the Dragon) and now Halo have ever been released in 4K. I know buyers would swallow up 4K collections of shows like The Mandelorian, The Expanse, Loki, The Crown, The Umbrella Academy, The Orville (which looks great in 4K, but is criminally only released on disc in the standard definition DVD format--not even in high definition!), and so many others if they were simply made available on 4K Blu-ray.Never the less, we do have 5 shows available in the format and Chernobyl is one of them.I recommend the purchase of this truly fascinating miniseries on 4K Blu-ray. Since even HBO Max doesn't show any of its own programs (other than "Game of Thrones" or "House of the Dragon") in 4K for some inexplicable reason, this is the only way to view it in the format it was actually filmed and mastered in--and beyond that it is also an excellent miniseries that is very much worth seeing. You can truly see it at its very best on this 4K Blu-ray edition.