I’m a Scholar of Ben Franklin. I Can’t Believe How Good Michael Douglas Is in the New Show.

In the new Apple TV+ series Franklin, Benjamin Franklin spends a lot of his time waiting. He waits for recognition from the French court. He waits for news—preferably something good—from America. He waits at parties for someone to translate his witticisms into French bons mots. Michael Douglas may be the marquee star, but the awkward pause plays a key role. If this sounds like a trial to watch, it isn’t; the actors play silence to good effect, exemplifying the extent to which diplomacy is a game best played by the patient.

Based on Stacy Schiff’s 2005 book A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, the Franklin series focuses on American diplomatic efforts to build alliances and gain support during the Revolutionary War. Joining a growing stable of shows on Apple TV+ that Slate has dubbed “AP U.S. History TV,” Franklin dramatizes the relatively little-known but crucial negotiations that made it possible for the Continental Army to stand on equal ground with the British. The first three episodes of eight release today, tracing Franklin’s work from the day he arrived in France in December 1776 until about a year later, when news reached Paris of the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga.

Franklin and his grandson, William Temple Franklin (played by Noah Jupe), arrive in Paris to crowds and acclaim. Struggling to earn the attention of French officials, particularly the foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, the two Franklin men settle slowly into French society. They are taken in by a French aristocrat and merchant, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, whose mansion in the village of Passy just outside Paris becomes Franklin’s base of operations for nearly a decade. The elder Franklin, along with Chaumont and Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, scheme to illicitly transport arms, munitions, and other supplies to America under the banner of a front operation they called “Rodrigue Hortalez and Company.”

Temple Franklin, meanwhile, quickly learns French so that he may better enjoy French society (and flirt with young women). He meets the Marquis de Lafayette by coincidence, immediately joins the young aristocrat’s social circle, and remains there after the Marquis sails for glory in America. And he butts heads with his grandfather, who sternly reprimands Temple’s lascivious lifestyle. Alas, the Benjamin of Franklin seems to have forgotten his own wayward youth.

Franklin’s life story is so broad-ranging that even such a narrow examination ends up sprawling across the screen. In just three episodes, we meet numerous Americans and several British spies and diplomats, plus King Louis XVI, Queen Marie-Antoinette, the French first minister, the treasurer, the foreign minister, and several other key aides. John Adams has yet to arrive in France, but he’ll appear in future episodes.

Key to the show’s functioning is the casting of Douglas as the septuagenarian founder. I will admit that when I first saw the trailer last year, I had trouble imagining Douglas in the role.
There is an edge to Douglas, both physically and vibes-wise, that seemed a little off for the rounded Franklin. Over the first three episodes, however, Douglas largely grows into the simple American suit and fur hat, the iconic Franklin uniform familiar to many impersonators roaming the streets of Philadelphia. At 79, Douglas brings a gleam in his eye, a sprightly energy, charm and wit to a man who was already past 70 when he arrived in Europe for the fourth time in his life in late 1776 as the first diplomat dispatched by the infant United States.

Among the greatest strengths of the show is the extent to which it embraces the uncertainty of the American experiment. Franklin’s arrival in France coincided with news of the fall of New York City to the British Army under General Sir William Howe. Through his first year living in Paris and its suburb, Passy, Franklin struggled to gain the attention of the French court as bad news continued to arrive from across the Atlantic.

The United States of Franklin is not predestined for greatness. It can barely survive, and merits only sneering dismissal from the European establishment. The show’s focus on interactions among French characters underscores for an American audience just how much of an afterthought the rebellion was in European diplomatic circles. Some Frenchmen were moved by the calls for liberty—Lafayette most prominently. But to the extent that French diplomats and officials cared about the American Revolution, it was only in the context of their century-long dispute with Great Britain.

The production further emphasizes the insecurity of the United States by allowing the French characters mostly to speak French, with English subtitles. In the first episode, it’s clear that Franklin speaks French, but often reverts to English to make his point most clearly. The show plays that for intentionally awkward humor at several points. Invited to a dinner, Franklin gives a long toast in English to stunned silence. Only when Beaumarchais translates the toast into French does the assembled crowd laugh and applaud at Franklin’s wit. Likewise, Temple spends significant time trying to learn the language, a little bit to help with his grandfather’s work but mostly to facilitate his teenage crushes on young Frenchwomen.

No production can satisfy every historian on the question of accuracy, not least because the dialogue must be wholly imagined or reconstructed from written sources. Dramatic cultural works are by definition works of imagination, not bound by the same rules that apply to histories. But a good standard is to look at whether moments of dramatic license matter for the audience’s understanding of the events of the past. For example, Franklin uses as a background device The Marriage of Figaro, a play written during the American Revolution by Beaumarchais. The play was first performed in public in 1784, long after Franklin’s diplomatic efforts in the mid-1770s. But Beaumarchais was working on the play in 1777–1778 during the events depicted in these episodes and the play is known for its anti-aristocratic message. Excerpting scenes, then, serves as a neat backdrop for Franklin’s work on behalf of an anti-monarchical fledgling republic.

An off note is the sequence in which the show dramatizes a rumor about the death of the Marquis de Lafayette. Shortly after arriving in America, Lafayette saw his first action with the Continental Army at the Battle of Brandywine near Philadelphia on Sept. 11, 1777. The battle overall was a disaster for the Americans, but Lafayette is widely credited with saving the retreat, ensuring that the army would live to fight another day despite the rout on the field. During the battle, Lafayette was shot in the leg, which the show depicts.

What follows is a muddle that illustrates the show’s difficulty with managing the time lags required for news to travel across the Atlantic. When reports of the battle first reach Paris, there is devastating news: the marquis is dead. This, in the unfolding of the show, turns out to be a false rumor, as Lafayette recuperates in Philadelphia and rejoins Washington’s staff.

With no way to think otherwise, Temple and friends gather and drink to their beloved, and supposedly lost, Gilbert. A dreamy sequence depicts Lafayette awakening and asking a young woman whether he’s in paradise, only to find out that no, he’s in Pennsylvania. We then launch back to France, where Lafayette’s letter to his wife confirms his survival.

But the rumor also never existed, historically speaking. There is no evidence that the French believed Lafayette had been killed for any amount of time, and Schiff does not discuss the issue in A Great Improvisation. In fact, one set of newspaper reprintings in Scotland did erroneously suggest that George Washington himself had been struck down at Brandywine, thanks to a printer’s error. But nothing about Lafayette. Whether or not the story is true, the writers could have used the fictionalized story to make a dramatic and historical point about the ways people experienced the passage of time during the 18^th century and the uncertainty that time lags added to any situation occurring at a long distance. Instead, we get a discount-rate punchline out of a Field of Dreams reference.

All that aside, Franklin puts the camera on the founder who was the most famous American in the world during his lifetime, but often takes a back seat to Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in popular culture. Things seem to be changing for Franklin, and perhaps this show will be followed by more depicting some of the many dramatic episodes in his life: his early career in Philadelphia, perhaps, or his career as a scientist that first brought him fame on both sides of the Atlantic. Early in his stay in Passy, the printing press he’d set up was destroyed. After repairing it with purloined and smuggled parts, Douglas’ Franklin steps back to admire his handiwork: “I have my voice back.”