The Guardian reviewer in question didn't rate Chernobyl highly, so much so that The Guardian rushed out another review by somebody else when it was critically acclaimed. Ever since I have taken the view that our tastes are so different that I should ignore their opinion.Surprised to see The Guardian gave this 4/5 today.
I only saw the trailer and it looked pretty awful, which doesn’t bode well.
Like others I find this show no more than a 5 or 6 out of 10 at best, yet I find myself up to episode 5 already, go figure. As is the modern way episode 1 is packed full of gratuitous nudity and a full blown orgy so that will get them hooked and coming back for more. A few episodes later watch out for the Spanish matriarch "convincing" the priest to bless her land.
I agree about the ridiculous contrived plot device of talking to the camera, it's cringeworthy.
The Manc accents are a bit ropey (speaking as a Manc) and Laura Haddock is just eye candy and doesn't have the acting chops to take a lead role.
Finally and a really trivial point that made me chuckle, but the policeman dad who they have made out to be as dull, boring, and old fashioned in his attitudes as can be, do you really think he would call a son of his Axel?
Oh well only another 5 episodes to go, there's one born every minute
Also, the scenes from the 1990’s were awful. I know we have been spoilt by shows like Stranger Things, but they did a poor job of portraying the era and the dance scene it was set in, the look and feel was all wrong. Didn’t even come close. It just came across like a few kids wearing slightly retro clothes, which of course they do now anyway.
It was also spoilt by the fact that obviously want to spin a few seasons out of this, and put a load of unfinished character and subplot developments in, which annoys me a lot when they do that.
Anyone else guess who the killer was? We did quite a few episodes from the final. It was obvious because they didn’t make it obvious. The only major character without motive, at least until it was revealed in the last episode. As with most who-dunnits, you simply think ‘who are they making me suspicious it could have been’, then immediately discount them. She was the only major character left. That’s just lazy script/story writing. At one stage I thought we might be spare the Father Brown level nonsense, but no it was as anticlimactic as I was expecting, which I guess is why it was an anticlimax, but I was still hoping for a slight twist. No joy.
I have to say if the awful and totally unbelievable jet washer scene, which was 100 times worse than the hocky FaceTime and talking head camera scenes, had been near the start of the season I would have definitely have not bothered watching to the end.
The music is spot on with slam positive - education, age of love - age of love amongst other "proper tracks" from that time. I was expecting the normal poorly researched music to be played and not the music that was actually played at the underground events not just in ibiza but in clubs here. So was pleasantly surprised that they got that right.
I'm enjoying it up to episode 7 now.
Don’t bother with the last episodes it’s painful can’t see it getting another seasonI enjoyed the first 6 episodes but from 7 onwards it got abit daft IMO