Chernobyl Creator Confirms There Won’t Be a Season 2

While some fans are still coping with the loss of Game of Thrones on HBO, other fans have turned their attention to another one of the cable network’s gripping offerings, Chernobyl. The limited miniseries explored the ways in which the Soviet Union reacted to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, offering the human, environmental, and political perspective of the situation. The series was always planned as a limited narrative, though the popularity and accolades the show has earned have led fans to speculate if we could ever see a second season. Creator Craig Mazin, however, sounds pretty definitive about there not being a second season.

When sharing an interview Mazin conducted with Decider about the potential of a second season, Mazin made sure to clarify, “All due respect to Decider, but the definitive answer to the headline’s question ‘Will There Be A Season 2 of Chernobyl?’ is ‘No.’”

With the series covering the majority of the pertinent events surrounding the disaster, it might seem obvious that a second season wouldn’t happen, but the HBO series Big Little Lies and Netflix series 13 Reasons Why have both surprised audiences with the announcement of follow-up seasons, with both of those being adaptations of books whose stories were self-contained. In the actual interview, Mazin detailed that, were a second season to somehow exist, it would likely be something else related to the Soviet Union.

“The disaster is not what drew me to Chernobyl. It’s the specifics of Chernobyl,” Mazin detailed. “If I were to continue this anthologically, probably it would be another investigation of another aspect of Soviet life because that part is something that is fascinating to me and kind of exciting to view again.”

He added, “I’m a child of the ’70s and ’80s and my life, in part, was shaped by the existence of a nation that doesn’t exist. I wanna know more about it.”

Mazin had previously elaborated on how the project came together when speaking with BAFTA Guru.

“So, I started researching Chernobyl because I was just generally interested in it and after a couple of weeks of just falling in love with these stories which were so heartbreaking and so shocking I went to Carolynn Strauss, who is an executive producer of Chernobyl along with myself and Jane Featherstone, and she and I went to HBO and said ‘here’s what we want to do’ and HBO said ‘okay, let’s see if you can do it.’” Mazin confirmed. “Essentially it started because I was fascinated with a simple question: why did Chernobyl happen? And the truth of that is in my mind more shocking than the actual explosion itself.”

Do you wish the creator would develop another season of the series? Let us know in the comments below!