Every Chernobyl Episode Ranked From Worst To Best

The miniseries opened with a bang, figuratively as well as literally. After an initial prologue with Valery Legasov recording his soon to be famous findings on Chernobyl then committing suicide, we’re thrown in at the deep end with the meltdown having just begun.

Paul Ritter’s Dyatlov is the first villain of the piece, refusing to believe the impossible. Despite repeated accounts of the reactor having blown up, he will not accept this as truth and keeps sending more and more of his men into the radioactive hellhole to confirm it.

There’s a noxious beauty as we see the yellow glowing flames spilling out into the inky black sky. The citizens of Chernobyl are roped in too, as we see them gather to watch on a nearby bridge.

This bridge became known as the Bridge Of Death; there were no survivors amongst those present that night within a year.

The episode does a magnificent job of introducing us to the major characters without ever letting us stop for breath. The pacing stays this high octane through the whole series afterwards too.