Apple TV+ series ‘Franklin’ spotlights Benjamin Franklin’s greatest achievement
“Franklin,” starring and executive produced by Michael Douglas, premiered globally on Friday, April 12th with the first three episodes on Apple TV+.
Apple TV+ in March announced that “Franklin,” a new limited series starring and executive produced by Academy, Emmy and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award winner Michael Douglas, will premiere globally on Apple TV+ with the first three episodes of its eight-episode season on Friday, April 12, followed by one new episode every Friday through May 17, 2024.
Based on Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff’s book, “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America,” “Franklin” explores the thrilling story of the greatest gamble of Benjamin Franklin’s career. In December 1776, Franklin is world famous for his electrical experiments, but his passion and power are put to the test when — as the fate of American independence hangs in the balance — he embarks on a secret mission to France.
At age 70, without any diplomatic training, Franklin convinced an absolute monarchy to underwrite America’s experiment in democracy. By virtue of his fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers and hostile colleagues to engineer the Franco-American alliance of 1778 and the peace treaty with England in 1783.
The eight-year French mission stands as Franklin’s most vital service to his country, without which America could not have won the Revolution. Diplomats and historians still regard it as the greatest single tour of duty by an ambassador in our nation’s history.
Craig Bruce Smith for TIME Magazine:
Franklin, his key, and his kite have graced everything from portraits to postage stamps to tea cups and tank tops for centuries. He was arguably the most famous man in the world. But those flashes of electricity loom so large that they have unfortunately blinded many from Franklin’s greatest achievement: the signing of the 1778 Treaty of Alliance between the United States and France.
That’s why it’s most welcome and important that Apple TV’s new eight-part series, Franklin, starring Michael Douglas, sheds light on something besides lightening.
Franklin offers a nuanced and generally accurate take on the alliance that brought France into the American Revolution and the 1783 Treaty of Paris that concluded the war.
The 79-year-old Michael Douglas convincingly plays a septuagenarian Franklin and brings in some of the Franklin-esque humor that was sorely lacking in Ken Burns’ version—historically accurate fart jokes and all.
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