M V

This is brilliant on so many levels - as a person who lived in the Soviet Union up until 1985, I can attest to the authenticity of each space, decor, clothing, etc. Every detail of every shot has been meticulously researched, all they way to the shoes that people used to wear ( no sneakers, of course), or the cigarettes they smoked. There was some artistic freedom taken with depicting certain events. I don't think that the Minister of Coal Industry could come to the miners with two soldiers with AK-47s and point the guns at them, but I guess the creators needed it for dramatic effect. Besides being a mesmerizing drama about a nuclear catastrophe and the heroic struggles to limit the spread of radiation, the show examines a moral dilemma of so many people I knew in Russia - what to do when everyone around you says that 2+2=5. For those who chose to rebel and tell their truth, the end result was often death. That what happened in each country that went through an experiment with socialism.