I'm not anti-nuclear power. I spend a lot of time these days trying to take human error out as a threat.

3 mile island was in the USA. We had a plane drop a nuclear weapon out of the plane in flight during the era when it could have exploded on impact with the ground. In the USA.

We were going to launch an ICBM at Russia but the low level technicians in the ICBM silo refused a valid order.The Russians TWICE were told to launch an ICBM at us but the valid order was refused.

Dont think just because we are not as incompetent as the mid 80's Soviet Russia was that human error cant catastrophically happen here.

This is how we verify launch codes to set off a nuclear war. I'm not kidding. "B" floppy disks. In 2019. And there is no plan to upgrade the ICBM silos.


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I’m not talking about bombs though, more in terms of nuclear power plants
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Man I can’t imagine being in that damn room when shit blew up
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The meeting with the KGB head at the end was amazing. He basically told Legasov that he was going to kill his spirit but leave him alive.

Amazing how long it took for his legacy to be aired. Once again, fuck the commie bastards.
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Presuming there's validity to what they actually described, the WAY they described the events was truly outstanding.

Even when I watched the older documentaries on this, the takeaway I always had was that things got too hot, the rods were inserted with the wrong material on their tips, they couldn't handle the heat and jammed.

But the way they went over the balancing act and the competing factors, and how spinning down the turbines too far was so catastrophic (and then as the heat rose the xenon burnoff and everything) - I mean holy shit that was awesome.
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I watched it prior to watching this.

This is WAY better. Again, presuming that they aren't playing fast and loose with the science. But with the pains Craig Mazin took to being historically accurate, I'd be floored if the end game is where he decides to fudge facts for the sake of narrative.
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Yeah. That was very properly dumbed down for an idiot farmer with high school physics for an education.

That is the best description I’ve ever seen of it.
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Your missing my point. No matter how advanced our tech progresses. No matter how many safeguards are in place. All of that matters. I'm not discounting the importance of those safeguards.But...........we cant take out the weakest link in the chain, us.


The DOD recognized this a long time ago. Worked on an A.I. project for the DOD about 9 years ago to try to remove the human being from the safety equation. Real life Skynet type project. It worked. Yet, was canceled because even when they knew human beings were the weakest link in the safety chain, leadership trusted the algorithms and coding less. Probably after watching a Terminator movie.:-)
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The podcast is very good about explaining each episodes accuracy. When they took dramatic license. The words and actions were real just not in this time and place in the story. etc.
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If they just made a supercut of all the scenes with Stellan Skarsgard I could probably watch in on loop for a day.

Holy crap he was great in this series.
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As good as Harris was, I liked Skarsgard's performance just a bit better. His character had great arc, going from party line goon to decent man who sees the need to get the truth out.

One of my favorite scenes is him addressing the group from which the three divers came.

You'll do it because it must be done. You'll do it because nobody else can. And if you don't, millions will die. If you tell me that's not enough, I won't believe you. This is what has always set our people apart. A thousand years of sacrifice in our veins. And every generation must know its own suffering. I spit on the people who did this, and I curse the price I have to pay. But I'm making my peace with it, now you make yours. And go into that water. Because it must be done.

*chills*
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Yeah, he was awesome.

I thought Harris did a great job showing the struggle with actually telling the truth knowing what was gonna happen. His stuff in the last episode was awesome.
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If Harris ever played a character other than a chagrined, tortured expert, he might be pretty damn good at it.

I mean...I wouldn't know, it's the only character he's ever played. Even if The Terror, he spent a lot of that series playing a slightly more harried version of Legasov. The frustrated, intelligent underling struggling with the constraints put on him by 'the man'.

He makes those somewhat exasperated, somewhat bemused expressions better than anyone in the business.

But I'm still a huge fan.
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I thought he was pretty good as the bad guy in the last Sherlock Holmes movie.

Side note, but I really enjoyed both of those movies.
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Get a little liquor in him, but do it before you find out about the embezzlement.


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