Science fiction on Apple TV+

 Watched the first four episodes of a science fiction series, Severance, on Apple TV+, now I have to wait for the rest! Great production design, with a palette of blues, greens, grey and white for the corporate setting. What if you could have a procedure that would sever your memories such that you couldn't remember what you did at work, and your work self couldn't remember life on the outside? The corporation is mysterious and authoritarian, work is hell, and there is no escape. A great cast includes Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Christopher Walken and stars Adam Scott. Scott is very famous for a whole load of movies and shows I have never seen with the exception of Big Little Lies. Maybe one of these days I'll watch Parks and Rec.

After finishing the last episode of Severance, we rolled into Swan Song, a film by Irish director Benjamin Cleary, who won an Oscar for his short film The Stutterer, starring two of the leads of Moonlight: Naomie Harris and Mahershala Ali. Terrific performances in a science fiction story about making a clone to save your family from grieving your death. The details of wearable tech and driverless cars, the Uniqlo wardrobe, the Vancouver coastal setting, lovely cinematography, all enhanced the performances, even if the story set aside the moral and ethical quandaries to focus on the sentimental. The closing song was Frank Ocean's cover of Moon River.

Escape to the Chateau

All of my browsing for overpriced apartments in Brooklyn has created a fair amount of anxiety. I can't really look seriously until April but I've been trying to get an idea of what is available in my price range, and there are a lot of crappy wildly over-priced apartments on the market. As an antidote I have watched season two of that French reality realty show, The Parisian Agency, in which very rich people allow us to tag along as they shop for luxury homes. The last episode included a tour of a large chateau that looks like the Disney castle. Then I got turned on to a British show called Escape to the Chateau in which a couple buy a 45-room chateau with a moat and renovate it themselves for their wedding event business. It's built on a medieval castle foundation but the main building dates from the 19th century. Some of the insulation is wattle and daub. There are bats, infestations of flies, crumbling stone, lead paint on all the windows, no heating or septic system or electricity. But he's an engineer and she's a designer, and they enlist local French tradesman and a bevy of expats as well to redo the stonework, plaster, and decorate with the odds and ends they find in the attic. They even DIY an elevator in one of the turrets. It's fascinating. Oh, and they have two small children. Luckily her parents are willing to move in with them to watch the kids because they work all day seven days a week for months. But first they get enough of it ready to hold their own wedding, and now in season two they successfully hold a wedding event. There's also a walled vegetable garden, seven outbuildings including an orangerie, and they keep chickens and pigs. They want to turn the moat into a fishing attraction. They have boundless imagination and energy, even if their taste is not mine. Apparently there are many Brits who have done the same.