Season 2 isn't worth watching. It's a mess plot and character wise and on top of that, it's really, really boring.

In an alternate reality, David Simon has made a Chernobyl with a focus on the failing institutions of the communist state, rather than Mazin's nuclear horror version.

Loved the show and the book! I think the biggest difference is that in the show it seems that whatever they're doing - whether it's all the digging or the dumping, seems like it's part of the process of fighting the disaster. But when you read the book, it turns out almost all they did was essentially misguided or not really necessary in the end.

I agree with it going off a cliff, and you're right about season 2, I can't remember anything interesting about it at all, except that it involved South America.

What other shows suffered from this?

Speaking of the 80's, even in the flashback scene, Russians were speaking in English.

I said "speaking amongst themselves", not "speaking amongst each other". It means Russians are speaking to other Russians in English, even without other nationalities around. Same with Czechs.

No, they didn't. Check Legrena on a map. It's south of Athens.

It's not just about time but a tiny little inflatable boat like that wouldn't have enough fuel to even make it a small portion of the way. On top of that, it would pass through the territorial waters of Turkey, where there are two serious chokepoints, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles where they would have been stopped.