After seing a clip from this series on Youtube several years ago I made several efforts every now and then to find it on the internet to no avail. Sure, I don't subscribe to any streaming services; if I did, that would probably have helped me, but that's another story.
A few days ago I found both seasons in 1080p on a Youtube channel called 'Fantasy' (in Russian though, because IMDB won't let me include Cyrillic characters here). Long story short, I downloaded them and had to stitch together subtitles on my own to match the 4+4 (S1) and 1-8 (S2) chunks of episodes, not being fluent in Russian although season two has a lot of English dialogue in several episodes.
Anyway, after binging both seasons over a two day span I'm here writing a review because of the abysmally few reviews of it. It really is an excellent show on all levels and deserves much more attention and praise.
If you like mystery and sci-fi sprinkled with nice character development, excellent acting and production values, you can't go wrong with this one. It has several elements and vibes from 'Lost', 'The Lost Room' and an intriguing spin on the Chernobyl incident and the town Pripyat all packaged into two season (16 episodes) that resolves everything.
The first season begins slowly by setting up all the characters and their backgrounds before delving deeper into what will become a somewhat complicated but interesting story that nicely eases us into season two with a cliffhanger.
While season one almost entirely is set in Russia (and CCCP) except for a bit in the final episode, season two spends more time in the USA. Without revealing too much, the plot is even more interwoven and complicated than the first because there are several things from season one that returns to fill in gaps. Really, you should think of this as one long sixteen episode season because everything comes back to things that happens earlier for good reasons, and it's pretty darn well handled.
I wish that more people took the time to watch this two season series because it is so well made and deserves so much praise. It's well written, acted, directed and executed. The only reason I give it a nine instead of a ten is because at times it drags a bit with some (to me) unnecessary moments and also some clearly stupid decisions by the main characters. Then again, they are all young and unexperienced so in a way that can be forgiven.
Final words: If you want to see something entertaining in the aforementioned categories, you won't regret this series at all. A solid short series with excellent production values and acting.
