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When TV tackles a true crime or disaster, the line between fact and entertainment becomes a tricky one to navigate. On one hand, it’s essential for creators to communicate the weight of the story they’re telling out of respect for the real victims. On the other hand, few real-life stories are automatically ready for television. That’s why HBO’s The Chernobyl Podcast is such a refreshing and revolutionary addition to this genre. By creating an episode-by-episode explainer of Chernobyl, creator Craig Mazin and host Peter Sagal are finding a better way to balance the necessarily complex storytelling that accompanies adaptations; with what happened in real life.
Even the best constructed crime drama dwells in a bit of fabrication. The Assassination of Gianni Versace took many liberties in depicting the real Andrew Cunanan’s relationship with Gianni Versace, showing the two actually meeting. Hulu’s The Act altered Gypsy Rose’s first runaway attempt, changing it from a hotel hookup to a more romantic and complicated relationship. Narcos expanded Pedro Pascal’s Javier Peña to the point where he became the DEA point person for both the Medellín and the Cali cartel though the real Peña was only assigned to Medellín.
Mazin’s Chernobyl also makes strategic edits and omissions. Chernobyl was a horrible, complicated disaster that involved an entire nation of plant workers, nurses, doctors, scientists, government officials, and civilians. It would be impossible for anyone to tell a full and complete story about this disaster, even if the former Soviet Union wasn’t notoriously quiet about its missteps. But it’s the compromises that came with constructing this miniseries’ story that The Chernobyl Podcast dissects, and it’s always fascinating to listen to.
For example in Episode 2, “Please Remain Calm,” Sagal and Mazin dive into the genesis behind Emily Watson’s Ulana Khomyuk. In reality there was no Ulana Khomyuk who worked as a scientist for the Byelorussian Institute for Nuclear Energy. She’s a composite character, but it was important to Mazin that she reflected a reality about the Soviet Union that is often not discussed. Though the nation conformed to fairly traditional and sexist gender roles, the Soviet Union had a large number of female scientists.
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That’s the balance that The Chernobyl Podcast helps communicate. Often, the five-episode miniseries currently being broadcast on HBO can feel like an exercise in watching innocent people suffer. The podcast highlights that though this government did intentionally send many people to their death, it’s too simplistic to think of the Soviet Union as an evil empire, ignorant of the cost to human life.
“When you’re dealing with something this inherently dramatic there’s only danger in adding your own drama on top of it because you’re just diminishing the truth which is shocking in and of itself,” Mazin says in Episode 2.
More true crime adaptations need to be more conscious of the sticky lines between truth and made for television truth. More shows need to follow the example of Chernobyl, explicitly explaining why their shows are manipulating history. And if that means calling for more podcasts in the world, so be it.
You can download new episodes of The Chernobyl Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
New episodes of Chernobyl premiere on HBO Mondays at 9/8c p.m. ET.
