Benjamin Franklin

Scientist, ambassador, inventor, writer, and genius, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was the quintessential interdisciplinary multi-tasker: he solved the riddle of electricity, made the first pair of bifocals, wrote scads of quotable homilies ("fish and houseguests stink after three days"), and is the only one of the Founding Fathers to have his John Hancock on a trio of documents critical to the American enterprise of gaining sovereignty--the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Treaty of Paris. In this three-part documentary profile, viewers trace the life of the man biographer H.W. Brands calls "the first American," from his humble origins as the son of a Boston candle maker, through his early adult years as a printer and publisher (who also found the time--as one interviewee put it--"to make life better for ordinary people" through the invention of such useful items as the stove that to this day still bears his name), and on to his emergence as the representative of the American colonies on the world stage. Delving beneath the textbook facts and dates, the program also spends considerable time on his personal life, from his frequent (if most likely harmless, and always reciprocated) flirtations with the opposite sex, to his split opinion over American independence with his bastard son William (a difference that estranged the pair for the remainder of their lives). The roll call of historians who weigh in here is impressive--Gordon S. Wood, Carol Berkin, Thomas Fleming, Pauline Maier, and biographers Brand and Edmund Morgan--whose incisive comments are nearly always more interesting than those of the actors (including Dylan Baker and Richard Easton who portray Franklin onscreen, and Blair Brown and others who appear in character to read letters). Mind you, it's not the actors' fault, but rather the format: the insightful gems that used to be briefly excerpted in a sentence or two of voiceover narration are now buried in unnecessarily drawn-out readings since it wouldn't do to have the actor appear for only four seconds (let us hope it does not become the fashion in historical documentaries). Still, this is a good biography, overall, of one of the most fascinating characters in American history. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)