HBO’s Chernobyl miniseries, while fantastic, isn’t likely to have much re-watch value. That’s largely because it’s an incredibly harrowing, depressing, and downright terrifying watch. If, however, you’re curious what such horror looked like on the page, creator Craig Mazin just made the scripts for all five episodes available for free online. Now, you can examine the show’s highly radioactive set pieces from behind the protection of your computer screen.
Readers may know Mazin for his work as co-host of the Scriptnotes podcast, which covers the ins and outs of the screenwriting process. “The best way to learn screenwriting is to read a bunch of scripts,” Mazin writes in a post on co-host John August’s website. “So these are intended for educational purposes only.”
If you, like we did, found yourself wondering how the tense, dialogue-free excursion into the water-logged ducts below the power station in episode two played out on the page, you can now see for yourself. You can compare and contrast the raw dialogue from each episode with the choices individual actors made with that dialogue. Perhaps most importantly, you can revisit some of the best moments in the show without having to put yourself through the emotional turmoil of staring into the sweet, innocent faces of those poor dogs.
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