Chernobyl is an Odd Choice to Challenge IMDB

There's been a giant proliferation of columns this week explaining last week's news release about the HBO miniseries, Chernobyl, achieving the highest ever rating on IMDB.  The internet movie database is an index of everything TV and movies, the site to visit for information on cast, crew, ratings, and reviews.

The IMDB ratings mean squat, though.  They do have an algorithm at work, so it's not just a popularity contest, but it's still mostly a popularity contest.  All the recent columns have said as much: basically, Chernobyl is good, but don't trust the ratings.

It just strikes me as a strange time to be having this conversation, because it's not out of the question that Chernobyl might be the best thing that's ever been on television.  If something like Friends or NCIS were at the top of the list, then surely the columns are justified.  Chernobyl is just good, riveting, beautifully shot, insanely well done TV.

Conceived of and written by the guy who wrote the Hangover movies and full of excellent British actors speaking not in Russian, but in their normal voices, it's easy to expect something subpar.  Chernobyl is anything, but.  I held off watching for a few weeks, because the episodes are long (all over an hour) and the subject matter is incredibly depressing.  When I started watching, though, I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Because of length, I couldn't binge the thing all at once.  I never got to watch more than two episodes in one sitting, but I spent the time in between longing to get back.  The drama is just so compelling.  As the creator, Craig Mazan, said in an interview, "everybody knows what Chernobyl was; nobody knows why it happened."  That's very true.

Additionally, no one (even most of the characters in the show) know anything about nuclear reactors, so the exposition required to bring the audience up to speed fit seamlessly into the plot.  There's the added suspense of when and how people will die.  You know the whole time these characters are being exposed to super deadly amounts of radiation, but you don't know when it will take a toll.

Mazin wrote the script specifically for the three leads, Stellan Skarsgard, Jared Harris, and Emily Watson.  They excel, leading an incredible cast of people in telling a harrowing story of utter failure. but also one of extreme bravery and sacrifice.  Scores and scores of patriotic Russians, some willingly, other in ignorance, gave their lives in the clean up and containment efforts, preventing a horrific disaster from becoming a literal world-changing event.

At the same time, it incorporates a narrative on truth that proves timely in the current US culture that's receiving it.  Mazin wrote most of the script before the 2016 election, but it's themes seem prescient, perhaps a reminder that often what feel like unique, contemporary issues are indeed as old as time.

The visuals are stunning, with long shots of empty towns or wildlife and intense periods of silence, where the viewer gets to process all the emotions of the moment right along with the actors.  Most of Chernobyl is well-researched and historically accurate.  There are a few composite characters and Mazin, already a veteran podcaster, did a whole companion series with detail about how and why they deviated from the historical record.

The IMDB ranking may not be trustworthy (especially from a critic's perspective), but this is hardly the evidence that proves such a point.  Chernobyl is a triumph of everything good about this new era of prestige TV and I look forward to whatever endeavor Mazin embarks on next.  I have a feeling he's not going to be focused on lower ranked projects as much anymore.