Chernobyl is a British 5-episode drama based on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. Episode 1 is like the night of the disaster, episode 2 covers the next couple of days, then a week, a month, and several months later.

Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård play Valery Legasov, head scientist directing the cleanup efforts, and Boris Shcherbina, a party officer placed in charge of the cleanup operation. Emily Watson plays a fictional scientist investigating the cause of the disaster (which apparently took many USSR scientist working as best they could since the state didn't want the truth to come out). Each episode has one or two other main characters that pretty much only appear in that episode, covering doctors, miners, soldiers and victims.

I like the behind the scenes because I lived through it but it didn't seem that serious from the perspective of a California teenager. Yes there was a nuclear accident and fairly widespread but seemed to be taken care of. The series points out that it could have been much worse except for the efforts of the USSR to mobilize vast resources to contain the meltdown. And the series also points out how much of a coverup there was.

It's a fairly engrossing series even for a period piece.