A Limited Series Based on Benjamin Franklin's Life Should Be More Fun Than This

Late in Apple TV+'s limited series Franklin, the eponymous protagonist and legendary American Benjamin Franklin is faced with intense charges of treason that the audience understands to be preposterous but that his accuser is ready and willing to believe. 

Franklin has spent years in France attempting to build an alliance with the fledgling would-be nation of the United States of America, and thus gain independence from Great Britain. When his accuser demands that he explain whether he is willing to side with England or France, Franklin pauses briefly. In that dramatic pause, an audience member may pipe up with “America, sir” as a hazarded guess of what the statesman will say. Franklin’s actual response in the episode? “I’m here for America, sir.” 

In these moments, Franklin calls to mind the type of PBS-style historical miniseries of the 1980s and 1990s that middle- and high-school history teachers would feast over so that they could wheel in a television near the end of a semester and keep their students occupied before final exams. Failing that comparison, Franklin also recalls the animatronic-driven scenes in the Walt Disney World attraction The American Adventure, in which iconic American men walk us through a very speedy history of the United States without spending too much time on the trifling details. Franklin boasts an impressive leading actor in Michael Douglas, and features one truly effective supporting performance, but in spite of the handsome production value, it takes a fascinating piece of world history and flattens it into a not-as-lively piece of drama.

Though Benjamin Franklin’s life is a massively foundational piece of America’s history, Franklin the limited series focuses only on a few of his later years, as he travels to France in 1776 to convince the foppish King Louis XVI to help underwrite part of the American Revolution and stick it to the Brits. He’s joined by his grandson Temple (Noah Jupe) on the journey, and is aided by British sympathizer Edward Bancroft (Daniel Mays) and the French Foreign Minister (Thibault de Montalembert). And though Franklin tries to stay focused on his goal of American independence, he’s lured by two different women — Anne Louis Brillon de Jouy (Ludivine Sagnier) and Madame Helvetius (Jeanne Balibar) — as much as he flirts shamelessly with them and any other women who may cross his path.

One of the most intriguing and yet inexplicable aspects of Franklin is its playful opening credits, which depict Franklin as a part of a grander play-acting scheme, with various sets and characters floating on and off like cardboard cutouts on a quaint little stage. Those credits imply a similarly playful series, but writers Kirk Ellis and Howard Korder have a more stentorian approach to the episodes surrounding those credits. When you look at their careers, it’s not that surprising that Franklin isn’t as bouncy as the opening suggests. Ellis wrote each episode of the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams, and Korder cut his teeth on HBO series like Boardwalk Empire. However, the more playful approach may have made Franklin a bit more enjoyable. 

Certainly, it’s not for a lack of trying on Douglas’ part. This acting elder statesman is able to carefully walk a balance  of both giving life to such a legendary figure and doing so without feeling too stuffy or dry. Franklin’s improvisatory style — as exemplified by the literal name of the Stacy Schiff book on which the show is based, A Great Improvisation — fits naturally with Douglas’ innate charm. 

Almost everyone Franklin encounters, from King Louis XVI to other American figures like John Jay, finds him charismatic even if he drives them crazy. The only outlier comes in the form of future U.S. President John Adams, portrayed by the other standout performer here, Eddie Marsan. Though Adams doesn’t appear in the first few episodes — Apple TV+ is releasing the first three on April 12 before shifting to a one-a-week release — once he does appear, he upends Franklin’s more charmed life in France, serving as a counter in temperament, patience, and lifestyle. Marsan’s take on John Adams is only a bit more aggressive than that of Paul Giamatti in the aforementioned John Adams miniseries, but his toughness only feels more noticeable in contrast to Douglas’ more intentionally laid-back take, offering a welcome odd-couple vibe to their interactions.

And yet, even as the pious and grouchy Adams serves as both the American antithesis of Franklin and as a foil for our eponymous hero, Franklin suffers from the limited amount of suspense inherent in the story that Ellis and Korder are telling. Anyone likely to check the show out is presumably familiar enough with world history to know that America won its revolution against the British, and they’re likely familiar enough to know that Franklin didn’t die at the hands of an assassin. The latter is worth noting because some of the episodes of Franklin try very hard to end with cliffhanger-esque moments and a musical cue akin to something from more intense genre dramas like Breaking Bad and Lost. All these moments do is highlight the inability to turn this story into an effective eight-episode series, as opposed to an expanded movie-length story. 

It’s rarely clearer how much wasteful expanse there is to Franklin than when the series tries to shift to some of its subplots. Arguably the most compelling subplot to Franklin’s playful machinations in France comes in the form of a double agent hiding in plain sight. (Though the history of the 1700s is literally not a spoiler, it seems respectful here to not reveal the identity of that double agent.) The additional subplots, in which we follow young Temple’s metamorphosis into a would-be French fop working in King Louis’ court and in which some of Franklin’s French patrons try to remain relevant in the great man’s eyes even as they outlive his usefulness, don’t add much to Franklin aside from padding the screen time.

In a series where episodes range from 50 to 65 minutes, each minute should be valuable and creatively lively. Instead, Franklin sometimes languorously drifts among the French nobles who are wary of being used by America’s rebels even as they chafe against the English. 

Franklin is compelling enough in fits and starts, but also wanting in relationship not only to more modern takes on American history such as the world-renowned musical Hamilton as well as to Ellis’ past historical miniseries, John Adams. In some ways, it feels weirdly coincidental that Apple TV+ is returning to the limited-series well of history once again. Earlier this year, the streamer premiered Masters of the Air, the follow-up series to HBO’s iconic Band of Brothers and equally brilliant The Pacific. Like Masters of the Air, the new series Franklin seems to badly want to recall the glory of past glimpses into American history. And like Masters of the Air, though it hangs its hat on a movie-star performance at the forefront, it cannot hope to match up. Franklin has a charming Michael Douglas performance in its favor, but unfortunately, even in a show bearing the legendary man’s name, that’s just not enough to make it work. 

Franklin premieres April 12 on Apple TV+ with three episodes. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Josh Spiegel is a writer and critic who lives in Phoenix with his wife, two sons, and far too many cats. Follow him on Bluesky at @mousterpiece.