I have a problem that it fictionalised what it was claiming to criticise. Did soldiers point guns at miners? No. Did a soldier frog march Anatoly Sitnikov to the roof of the reactor? No. Was the minister of mining some weasly beurocrat ignorant of mining? No he was an ex-miner.
I do have a problem where the important reality of how the scientic problems were solved by a large team working together is reshaped into single superwoman who works weekends and sleeps at her desk in a continuation of our bullshit work myths. How teams work successfully is much more valuable thing to dramatically explore.
And ultimately, I am skeptical about the popular framing that this was a "could only happen to Soviets" disaster. Western governments/companies have lengthy history of suppressing profound chemical disasters causing mass cancers (tobacco, roundup etc.), suppressing information about known safety problems allowing more people to die (Boeing), putting a brave face on a crisis using their own family (BSE and John Gummer) and being slow/callous about the health of civilians in a crisis response (Katrina) and suffering nuclear safety accidents due to contravening procedures e.g. Los Alamos is being shutdown due to it's poor safety culture.
I see the root causes as fundamentally human and not unique to the Soviet system but people are not taking that message. Instead it's being used to stir up anti-Soviet sentiment in the current and absurd Cold War II that we are currently brewing. Sigh.
> And ultimately, I am skeptical about the popular framing that this was a "could only happen to Soviets" disaster.
No doubt that callousness towards humanity abounds throughout the world, and of course in the US and the rest of the west. Soviet/Russian socioeconomics are so fascinating because they are a superpower on a budget. Callousness + shoddiness + scale, in my eyes, make this disaster uniquely Soviet. While your examples show profound inhumanity, their scale pales compared to Chernobyl.
I agree the clean-up is stunning in scale but in terms of the causes then I only see a regularly repeating pattern. The China Syndrome maps out quite nicely how it would happen in a commercial reactor i.e. pressure to not report problems leading to falsifying safety reports leading to potential critical situations. Commercial companies often have existential pressure to cut costs to meet goals leading to safety violations and it happens all the time PG&E, South West, PCA... it's an endless list.
I do have a problem where the important reality of how the scientic problems were solved by a large team working together is reshaped into single superwoman who works weekends and sleeps at her desk in a continuation of our bullshit work myths. How teams work successfully is much more valuable thing to dramatically explore.
And ultimately, I am skeptical about the popular framing that this was a "could only happen to Soviets" disaster. Western governments/companies have lengthy history of suppressing profound chemical disasters causing mass cancers (tobacco, roundup etc.), suppressing information about known safety problems allowing more people to die (Boeing), putting a brave face on a crisis using their own family (BSE and John Gummer) and being slow/callous about the health of civilians in a crisis response (Katrina) and suffering nuclear safety accidents due to contravening procedures e.g. Los Alamos is being shutdown due to it's poor safety culture.
I see the root causes as fundamentally human and not unique to the Soviet system but people are not taking that message. Instead it's being used to stir up anti-Soviet sentiment in the current and absurd Cold War II that we are currently brewing. Sigh.
That said, great series, loved it!