You can tell from listening to episodes of Scriptnotes that Craig Mazin is as smart as a tack but it's been hard to source scripts he's written, unlike John August. This work knocked my socks off - it's brilliant drama, taking a subject that doesn't sound that exciting, and exploiting the fact that most of us know something happened but now what, exactly how or why. It throws the reader right in with the explosion, then doesn't stuff around from that point - the all too believable insistence that nothing wrong is happening, the potential massiveness of catastrophe, the bravery of the miners and divers, the doggedness of the decent scientists.
There are so many knock out scenes - the miners volunteering, the quivering bureaucrats, the death of the dogs. In a way the story has parallels with Operation Barbarossa - the Russians refused to believe what was happening, allowing a situation to get totally out of hand, but then once they appreciated the new reality they rallied, showing great determination and bravery and complete disregard to the safety of its warriors.
This is a masterpiece.
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