--- title: HBO's 'Chernobyl' Is More Than Just a Historical Drama description: Grim as it is,'Chernobyl' still has political resonance, writes TIME's Judy Berman. The new show based on the 1986 disaster airs May 6. canonical: https://time.com/5581704/chernobyl-hbo-review/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-05-02T09:49:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T23:26:01.983Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: HBO's 'Chernobyl' Isn't Just a Historical Drama—It's a Warning og:description: The new show based on the 1986 disaster airs May 6 og:url: https://time.com/5581704/chernobyl-hbo-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf976773ec430119/698949554ee262f1c2314721/chernobyl-hbo.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Chernobyl HBO og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: HBO's 'Chernobyl' Isn't Just a Historical Drama—It's a Warning twitter:description: The new show based on the 1986 disaster airs May 6 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf976773ec430119/698949554ee262f1c2314721/chernobyl-hbo.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # HBO's _Chernobyl_ Isn't Just a Historical Drama—It's a Warning > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic May 2, 2019 9:49 AM UTC  Legasov (Harris, right) speaks scientific truth to absolute power Legasov (Harris, right) speaks scientific truth to absolute powerHBO  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic May 2, 2019 9:49 AM UTC You know you’re in for a bleak story when the hero kills himself in the first scene, as Jared Harris’ character does at the outset of HBO’s _Chernobyl_. Not that anyone who tunes in to a miniseries with a title like that should be surprised to find out they’re in for five hours of anguish, terror and death. There’s no bright side to the 1986 reactor explosion that likely killed thousands in Soviet Ukraine, rendering the surrounding area uninhabitable for centuries to come and making the word _Chernobyl_ synonymous with the risks of nuclear energy. But, grim as it is, the saga still has plenty of political resonance. The show’s structure is unnecessarily complicated. After flashing forward to the suicide of Harris’ Valery Legasov in 1988, creator Craig Mazin jumps jarringly back to the night of the explosion. An action spectacle that dominates the premiere, which airs on May 6, this sequence captures the scale of Chernobyl’s mismanagement–yet it doesn’t connect emotionally, because we don’t know anything about the workers caught in this radioactive death trap. Ostensibly to build suspense about what really caused the disaster–which feels a bit _inappropriate_ in the context of a historical tragedy–Mazin saves what small glimpses he provides into their backstories for the final episode. Only the wife of an injured firefighter gets an ongoing subplot, one that gives her little to do besides weep. The real leads don’t come to the fore until the day after the explosion. Legasov is a renowned nuclear physicist; Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgard) is the gravel-voiced Communist Party man who travels with him to the still burning time bomb of a power plant; and Emily Watson plays Ulana Khomyuk, a brilliant, righteous (and fictional) scientist who tries to keep the panicked Legasov honest. As they appeal to politicians all the way up to Gorbachev, _Chernobyl_ becomes a life-or-death struggle between experts and the ignorant bureaucrats for whom their warnings are an inconvenient truth. This drives home the many obvious failures of Soviet authoritarianism, of course, and the ongoing threat of nuclear annihilation. At its best, however, _Chernobyl_ demonstrates what happens when societies stop listening to science. Amid our rapidly worsening global climate crisis, it’s a critical message. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5581704/chernobyl-hbo-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5581704/chernobyl-hbo-review/"},"headline":"HBO's Chernobyl Isn't Just a Historical Drama—It's a Warning","datePublished":"2019-05-02T09:49:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T23:26:01.983Z","description":"Grim as it is,'Chernobyl' still has political resonance, writes TIME's Judy Berman. 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