Category: Television

Last night I watched Episode 1 of HBO's new series His Dark Materials, based on the much-loved Philip Pullman novels.

His Dark Materials, a trilogy of books (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass) were my constant late night companions sixteen years ago while undergoing cancer treatment and unable to sleep. I was immediately drawn into the alternate universe and the adventures of Lyra and the rest of the characters she encountered on her journey.

I thought the feature film, which was supposed to be one of three (encompassing the entire trilogy), done 12 years ago, was good. Not great, but good. I felt the casting was spot-on, not only with Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel but also Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter. I was sorely disappointed at the ending, however, as it was at that point that the movie veered off from the original source material in an unforgivable fashion, and the remaining two books were never filmed.

This time, however, it appears HBO will not shy away from the controversial content of those two books that ultimately killed that first attempt to bring the story to the screen. His Dark Materials was marketed as a Young Adult series of books, but the themes addressed therein are decidedly adult in nature and have pissed off a lot of the sanctimonious religious types because they dare to question life, death, and religious dogma and control itself.

HBO is marketing this as another Game of Thrones or Westworld, already renewing it for Season Two, indicating they have zero fucks to give in regard to said sanctimonious religious types.

Last night got it all off to a good start, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the journey HBO is providing.

If you haven't read the books (and frankly, I need to read them again as it's been years), I highly recommend them.

And having never seen the show before, all I can say is:

SO.

MANY.

DADDY.

ISSUES.

What you need to know about Chernobyl, HBO's 5-episode miniseries from Craig Mazin, is that you cannot understand how deeply it will destroy the very fabric of your being until you see it. Which is, strangely, analogous to the fallout from the meltdown of Chernobyl reactor #4. As it was happening, and in its immediate aftermath, no one understood what it meant. "You are dealing with something that has never happened on this planet before!" says scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) when attempting to impress upon the Kremlin the unknowable scope of the event, which took place in April of 1986. But for us in 2019, we do know. At least, we know that simple, almost mundane scenes of children playing in the radioactive ash and men at the power plant letting irradiated water splash all over them equals death. But as a first responder picks up a rock and looks at it curiously, his hand melts away, and others start to know things too.

As a viewer you know the history; you know the monster is on the other side of the door and you find yourself screaming, "Don't go in there! You're going to DIE!

___________________________

"Chernobyl" is not an easy show to watch.

Nor should it be. The 1986 explosion at Chernobyl in present-day Ukraine was the worst nuclear accident to date, which killed hundreds of thousands and still affects millions more. But HBO's five-part miniseries is hard to watch for reasons beyond those harrowing facts and graphic images of the immediate effect of radiation on the Chernobyl plant workers and first responders, the omnipresent column of black smoke belching from the reactor's core, or even eerie footage of the residents of the nearby factory town of Pripyat, gathered convivially to watch the fire burn while their children chase radioactive ash like snowflakes.

"Chernobyl" is so hard to watch because of the all too human themes creator Craig Mazin has woven into his masterful script. Mazin and his team have done their homework, immersing themselves into the history, science, and even the tick-tock of Chernobyl, as well as first-hand accounts in Nobel prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich's "Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster." Watching the show is a crash course in nuclear physics, but more importantly, it is a thought-provoking exploration of the importance of truth and the nature of self-sacrifice.

"The truth doesn't care"

"We live in a time where people seem to be re-embracing the corrosive notion that what we want to be true is more important than what is true," Craig Mazin says of the series. "It's as if truth has become a joke. One of the most important lessons of "Chernobyl" is that the truth does not care about us. The Soviet system was soaking in this cult of narrative, and then one day the truth erupts. This is why this story is more relevant than ever."

Truth—and the lack of it—is front and center in Episode One. The series' protagonist, Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) sits alone in his Moscow flat with a small cassette player, attempting to grapple with the truth of Chernobyl two years after the incident. Minutes later, we are plunged into chaos and confusion in the Chernobyl control room just seconds after the explosion. Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter), the plant's senior engineer, systematically ignores the increasingly alarming information his subordinates bring him that the reactor's core has exploded. Again, and again, Dyatlov insists that an explosion is impossible, and continues to issue orders that will consign his already doomed men to more immediate and agonizing deaths from radiation.

Fear is pervasive in the control room, but the cause is not just the alarming reads on the radiation meters (the more sophisticated and accurate meter is locked in the safe and no one has the key— a marvelously Soviet moment). No, the more pressing issue, we learn through snatches of conversation, is that the accident may have been the result of a safety test performed hours before. This is the real specter that haunts Dyatlov and the men in the control room: that they may be blamed for the damage caused by the accident. Their immediate concern is not the reactor as much as containing the damage to their reputations and job security.

If we find this ludicrous, the incredulity of all the characters suggests that worrying about their jobs is an easier problem to get their heads around than a seemingly impossible explosion in a nuclear reactor, something, as Legasov later states, "has never happened before on this planet."

But Dyatlov doggedly continues to insist that everything is fine, the damage is minimal, as are the radiation levels, and he passes this doctored information and, with it, his damage control agenda up the chain of command.

Truth is again relegated to the sidelines as the plant's apparatchiks, Director Bryukhanov and Chief Engineer Fomin meet with Pripyat party officials in a bunker below the reactor's executive office. The precaution of evacuating the city is dismissed by a veteran of the Russian Revolution, who tells the assembled officials: "It is my experience that when the people ask questions that are not in their best interests, they should simply be told to keep their minds on their labors."

Read the rest here.

Comedy gold from my guilty pleasure:

Marty: This thing has been way harder than I thought.

Marty: It's made me feisty.

Marty: Once more into the breach!

Dan: I exposed enough of it to tell what it was.

Dave: You wanna see it!

Rick: I wanna see it! I want to expose the entire structure.

Jack: How big are we talking?

Clotworthy: A mud-filled void.

Marty: It's still in there, then.  Craig: Exactly.

Clotworthy: Taken from the same hole.

Gary: Look at this, Rick.

Marty: You can swing that metal detector.

Charles: You ain't seen nothin' yet. Marty: You ain't seen nothin' yet!!!! Gary: winks at Marty.

Marty: You ready to get after it?

Clotworthy: It is a day of great anticipation for Rick, Marty, and their partners.

Marty: So Craig, are you excited about this? It's been a long time coming.

Craig. Yes, excited and nervous.

Marty: We get to see what your dad has been dreaming about forever, right Dave?

Clotworthy: Each hole will be filled with a small blasting cap.

Rick: We are well on our way to defining a hard target.

Marty: I'm rolling up my sleeves and everything, Gary.

Gary: We pounded this area last year.

Marty: Keep going!!!!

Gary: This is good!!!!

Marty: We have a very mysterious structure under here.

Rick: My hope is that we can expose all of that, or enough of it.

Henskee: First thing is to estimate the diameter. This looks like it was part of something that was pretty large.

Rick: Don't let your imagination run away from you.

Rick: Peter, I designate you to take it there. Peter: I will bring a couple of guys with us.

Gary: It's quite deep as well.

Gary: Give me ten inches, just there mate.

Rick: Oh baby!!!!!

Clotworthy: This will generate a series of seismic pulses deep within the underground test area.

Jack: I didn't understand until I got here how big we were going.

Gauthier (the big guy from Eagle Canada): We were super-excited.

Jeremy (the bald guy from Eagle Canada): At that point where I believe the shaft or opening is.

Rick: I get choked up. You should be proud of yourselves. You hit the mark, you hit the bullseye.

Unidentified Eagle Canada worker: We're gonna chew up that money pit pretty good.

Dr. McFarland (New Brunswick University): We can get it going.

Dr. McFarland (New Brunswick University): Very nice…

Dr. McFarland (New Brunswick University): This is where all the action happens.

Dr. McFarland (New Brunswick University): When I push it in, you will actually see……doink!

Gary: Look at this!!! A fricken' hole!!! (sticks finger in and out of hole in rock). What the heck has someone been doing here?

Gary: You can see where this has been pounded in.

Gary: It's obvious these two holes are connected.

Irving (the suit): We've got a couple of tricks up our sleeve.

Irving (the suit): Here are the engineers, and a couple of guys from the pile-driving department.

Craig: So we said sure, we'll do it with you guys.

Marty: I did see the picture that you sent, and it is exciting!

Rick: This is more about eyes and boots on the ground, getting dirty, jumping in.

Peter: So there's something really big/deep. Mike West (geophysicist with

GPR): Yeah, this isn't a subtle response.

Gary: You never ever know what is going to come out of your next hole.

Rick: Gary reached in, and there you go.

Source.

…I'd rather not publicly admit to watching.

Just once I'd love to see the outtakes from Texas Flip 'n Move where the potential buyers/paid actors touring the finished homes prior to auction blurt out, "WTF is this crap? What were they thinking?!"

We wrapped up first season last night and I have to say The Umbrella Academy is one of the freshest, most entertaining things I've seen on television lately. From the minds of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy is the story of a super-dysfunctional family of superheroes who have eight days to get it together and save the world. The story, the sets, the special effects…all are spot-on. And it's fun!. Check it out.

Counterpart has been cancelled.

While disappointing, this does not come as a complete surprise. While I loved Season One, I found this past season terribly difficult to follow. I rarely knew which universe (Alpha or Prime) things were actually occurring in. Because of tech or architecture, it was easy to tell the two universes apart, but the lines blurred this season. It didn't help matters that the story itself had become so convoluted it would be difficult to follow in a single universe.

But all is not lost. Apparently Season 3 is being shopped to various streaming services.

On another note, I find myself being drawn into yet another Netflix series, The Umbrealla Academy. It's the story of an estranged and very dysfunctional family of superheroes being forced to come together in the wake of their father's death in order to prevent the end of the world.