Big Bada-Boom!
It’s come out of nowhere to become the highest rated TV show of all time. It has pushed past Game Of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos in the rankings.
Now, not only has Chernobyl given a glimpse of the abject misery and bureaucratic failure that always follows Socialism, as sure as night follows day, but it has got the Russians all excited!
Because, you see, the whole thing was our fault! Well, not ours personally, but the CIA did it.
The Sky/HBO co-production reveals the complex chain of events set off by the explosion at the nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 leading from a failed safety test.
However, the Moscow Times has reported a number of Russian media organisations are furious at the portrayal of the event, and that the state-backed TV channel NTV is filming its own version.
It Was Jack Ryan?
Alexei Muradov, director of the upcoming feature, told the newspaper his story will be based on their version of events where:
“Americans had infiltrated the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and likely had a hand in the explosion. Many historians do not deny that, on the day of the explosion, an agent of the enemy’s intelligence services had infiltrated the plant.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Russia’s culture ministry has part-funded the series by providing the production company with 30 million rubles (£362,000).
