Goofs

Throughout the series, people refer to each other in the form "Comrade-surname," which is inappropriate among colleagues. Dyatlov's subordinates would have called him "Dyatlov" among themselves and "Anatoly Stepanovich" (his first name and patronymic) when addressing him directly, rather than "Comrade Dyatlov," as they do in the episode. Colleagues familiar with one another would have referred to each other either by first name or surname, but also without the use of "comrade," which is an official/bureaucratic form of address. Ironically, when Bryukhanov summons the local Party leadership into an office to figure out what's going on, he refers to them more than once as "gentlemen." Now, if ever there were a time to address a room as "comrades," this would have been it. "Ladies" and "gentlemen" (Russian: "damy" and "gospoda") were terms that had been tossed out of the lexicon upon the establishment of the Soviet regime in the late-1910s/early-1920s for being "bourgeois" and were replaced by "comrades." At a meeting of Communist Party officials, no one would dare address the others as "gentlemen" for fear of appearing politically degenerate.

The character of Valery Legasov is described as "an expert in RBMK reactors" but in real life he was not. He was a nuclear physicist and a nuclear chemist.

At least one worker who survived the explosion strongly objected to the portrayal of Dylatov, saying while he was difficult to work with, he was not nearly as villainous or corrupt as he is presented here.

At the end of this episode, people are going about their business the morning following the disaster, oblivious to the danger. School children are shown walking, dressed in Soviet school uniforms. The girls are wearing brown frocks with white pinafores. In the USSR, school uniforms for girls from 1948 to the 1980s consisted of brown frocks with white lace cuffs and collars, worn under black pinafores, white pinafores being used only for special occasions, such as the first day of school, class picture day, and national holidays. Although May 1 - International Workers' Day - was a major Soviet holiday, it came nearly a week after April 26 (the morning of the Chernobyl disaster). The morning of Saturday, April 26 girls would have gone to school (Soviet children went to school every day except Sunday) in black pinafores, not white. Things get even more complicated when one considers that, by the mid-1980s, an alternative 3-piece navy-blue uniform was introduced for girls, consisting of a skirt, blazer, and vest. The error here is understandable - seeing as students were more likely to be photographed on the first day of school, picture day, or on a celebratory occasion, it makes sense that images of white pinafores are likely to have dominated the costume designer's research.

The medical staff knew about the perils of radiation and iodine tablets were at the ready since the beginning of the emergency response.

A starling falls dead to the pavement of the town Pripyat. This particular bird is in its winter plumage (the fresh feathers are prominently tipped white including breast feathers and buff wings, which gives the bird a speckled appearance) despite the date being April 27th. In late April, the feathers of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are all glossy black.

Almost the entire time line, in all episodes, are incorrect. Dates and times are wrong in almost every instance. See History Buffs: Chernobyl for more details.

The plant worker who gives the dying irradiated worker a cigarette has western fashion frames with spring hinges not available in the '80s and definitely not Soviet issue.