Kevin Simler

What would you have done differently / wish the creators had done? Either in terms of storytelling or releasing more/different notes (like the podcast)?

Hmm, tricky, because I really liked so many of their creative choices, like the time-shifting in final episode. Perhaps instead of a podcast, put the factual comparison in those post-credit explainer bits that HBO does so often now?

I don't dare to start it ... I used to work on this topic over a 2 year period (2011-2012; working on a screenplay) and I'm too worried it got it all wrong

You were working on a screenplay about Chernobyl? Nuclear accidents?...

I wrote a screenplay (was selected for Script Station at the Berlin film fest so was developed partly there, but never produced) about the last months of communism in Hungary from the POV of the evening news team. It was an interesting moral grey zone of top notch professionalism

and full political complicity. The film had a substantial prelude / flashback Apr 26 - ca. May 2, and the shameful (and *harm*ful) non-coverage of the events in the entire Bloc. Used that both as metaphor for censorship there in general, and in the literal-historical sense:

the many people I interviewed for research agreed that was the moment when people lost trust in the system forever - that's when the end began ---- How do you trust your leaders who send you out to march on May 1, one day after radioactive rainfall on Budapest, with your kids?