Swede Renck started out as a music video director, from Bowie and The Streets to Robbie Williams and Madonna, and ads, then got into TV via episodes of Breaking Bad etc. plus French-British crime drama The Last Panthers in 2015. Mazin had a not too interesting background of co-writing sequels like The Hangover II & III and Scary Movie 3 & 4. This is a five hour Sky / HBO co-production, showered with Emmys.
Despite the (literally) scalding treatment and subject matter, a series with great momentum and excitement, brilliantly written with what I coined 'Big Picture and Little Picture' - momentous events made real through human stories. Thus we have the totally doomed control room operatives, Paul Ritter, Robert Emms, and Sam Troughton (grandson of Patrick) intercut with the doomed fireman Adam Nagaitis and his wife, Jessie Buckley. Then in comes the combative pair of Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgard, who gradually begin to respect each other, and a group of tough miners, who provide some of the funnier moments, which are most welcome (e.g. they all pat the Mining Bureaucrat so he's filthy, end up mining in the nude).
Harris is really a terrific actor, but so is Buckley - when they're onscreen you cannot take your eyes off them.
Then dog shooting (a mini essay on being corrupted by war), moon buggies to clear the roof, a court case and Harris being silenced - his suicide finally made the cover-up public. The fact it took until 2017 to finally seal over the reactor, which is only designed to last 100 years... what then? And that the other three reactors were still operational.
Very ominous music from Hildur Guonadottir (preferred it to her Joker score), DP fellow Swede (but not I think former collaborator with the director) Jakob Ihre, stunning editing (when you notice it - montage at end of episode 3, for example) from Jinx Godfrey and Simon Smith (assistant on Patrick Melrose and A Royal Night Out; edited episodes of Endeavour and Victoria).
With Emily Watson, Con O'Neill, Ralph Ineson, David Dencik, Adrian Rawlins, Barry Keoghan, Michael Socha (This Is England), Laura Elphinstone, Adrian Rawlins & Jamie Sives (both in Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself), Mark Lewis Jones (who's in everything), Billy Postlethwaite, Ron Cook, Donald Sumpter.
Goes without saying the makeup is incredible, and probably wincingly accurate.
At one point I asked Q how she knew the reactor had exploded. "What do you think happened," she replied. "a bird shit on the roof and it fell in?" Which serves me right for asking a stupid question.
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