If you, like me, a still thinking about ANDOR, a week after the final season finished, I have a suggestion for something to move onto. And it's not more bounty hunters on Tatooine.
HBO's CHERNOBYL mini series excellent as it was, probably wasn't ideal viewing during grim lockdowns in 2019. Right now it is a very effective follow up to a Star Wars show, because - amazingly - it shares a lot of themes, presentation, cast and crew.
ANDOR AND CHERNOBYL SHARE THE SAME NIGHTMARE BLUEPRINT
The Crew
Tony Gilroy (Andor) and Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) have been swimming in the same creative waters for years—gritty, dialogue-driven stories where systems, not supervillains, are the true enemy.
While not the same director, Chernobyl (Johan Renck) and Andor (Toby Haynes, Benjamin Caron, and others) have a shared directorial tone:
- Cold lighting
- Unsentimental framing
- Long silences where the truth creeps in
They both feel closer to '70s prestige cinema than modern sci-fi or prestige TV.
The cinematography? The same cold light. The same glacial camera movement, like we’re being slowly drawn into a bureaucratic sarcophagus.
Even the sound design whispers guilt. That dreadful hum of something broken, grinding on, unseen.
The Cast - expect to see a few familiar faces
The fact that these actors work across both shows tells you something:
casting directors know they carry the weight of real-world institutional
horror on their faces.
Stellan Skarsgård
In Chernobyl, he is Boris Shcherbina – the gruff Soviet apparatchik who slowly realises the truth and helps expose the cover-up.
In Andor, Luthen Rael – the grim-faced rebel mastermind running a secret war from the shadows.
In both cases he portrays a ruthless pragmatist who sacrifices idealism to save the system from itself. Both are brilliant performances. Both exude cold fury and reluctant duty.
Robert Emms
In Chernobyl, he portrays Leonid Toptunov – one of the junior engineers at Reactor 4 on the night of the disaster.
In Andor, Lonni Jung – the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) officer secretly working for the Rebellion.
Alex Ferns
In Chernobyl, , he portrays Andrei Glukhov, the leader of the Tula coal miners brought in to dig under the reactor to prevent a second explosion.
In Andor, Sergeant Linus Mosk, the corporate security officer who teams up with Syril Karn to pursue Cassian in Season 1.
DOOMED "ENERGY PROJECTS" AND MURDERED PLANETS
Chernobyl is a story about a meltdown—both nuclear and moral. So is Andor.
In *Chernobyl*, we have the RBMK reactor: an unstable Soviet invention that explodes when you follow orders.In Andor, we have Project Stardust—better known as the Death Star—an unstable Imperial invention that explodes when you ask too many questions.
Both are dressed up as technological achievements. "Energy projects". Both are designed to project state power.
Both end up committing genocide.
In Chernobyl: the people of Ukraine.
In Andor: the people of Aldhani, Ghorman, and eventually, entire star systems.
BUREAUCRACY AS HORROR
Remember Chernobyl’s Lyudmilla Ignatenko? Her husband dying by inches while bureaucrats lie to her through plastic smiles?
Now think of Bix Caleen, strapped to an Imperial torture rig, being asked politely to “cooperate.”
Same nightmare. Different backdrop.
Andor and Chernobyl both show us what happens when the truth becomes inconvenient.
- When careerists are rewarded for saying “nothing’s wrong.”
- When someone says “cut corners” and someone else dies horribly.
- When ideology matters more than physics.
And in both cases, the lies are protected by a paper wall of committees, rank, memos, and fear.
QUIET HEROES AND GRIM HOPE
In Chernobyl, we get Legasov, Shcherbina, Khomyuk. All flawed. All brave. All doomed to be erased, eventually.
In Andor, we get Kino Loy, Dedra Meero (kind of), Luthen Rael, Cassian himself.
Andor may have X-wings and fascist space architects. Chernobyl has graphite and lead aprons.
But both are slow-burn, dialogue-heavy, morally complex stories about what happens when power forgets it's mortal.
Final note
Chernobyl has some resemblances to Andor but for heaven's sake don't mistake it for a follow up to Skeleton Crew. It's grown up stuff. Chernobyl should be shown as a mandatory requirement in government management courses, arguably any management course. The courtroom explanation for what went wrong in the last episode is as gripping as the rest of it (and that's saying something).
