HBO's 'Chernobyl' could be TV's highest-rated series ever

While Hollywood's TV studios are hustling to find the next Game of Thrones, HBO might have stumbled upon it already with its latest hit, Chernobyl.

The five-part mini-series delves into the story of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, and the results of the widespread radioactive exposure.

It released in May and is already the highest-rated television series of all time, according to crowd-sourced review site IMDb.

It rates higher than any other historical drama and even higher than AMC's juggernaut Breaking Bad, and HBO's Game of Thrones.

According to The Economist, reviews for the series have averaged 9.6 out of 10.

In contrast, other popular historical dramas like The Crown and The People v. O. J. Simpson (aka American Crime Story) barely reached that at their peaks.

Even more impressively, every single episode of Chernobyl has been rated by IMBD users at 9.5 or higher - a feat which, for four consecutive episodes, had previously only been achieved by Breaking Bad, and that was for its final four episodes.

Given the subject matter, and the fact that it's an historical drama as opposed to an epic fantasy like Game of Thrones (which has an average rating of 9.4/10), this level of success is relatively unheard of.

The show has also caused a massive swell of interest in the real-world events of Chernobyl with web traffic for the disaster on Wikipedia increasing 56-fold since the start of the year.

'Chernobyl' is available to stream on Neon. Listen to The Chernobyl Podcast here or on iHeartRadio

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission