The Founding Father who'd absolutely ruin your group chat with unsolicited electricity facts.
Season 1 • Episode 3
Latest“The Chess Master” follows “America's native genius,” as historian Keith Arbour calls Franklin, through the final 14 years of his life, nine of which were spent in Paris as the rebellious colonies' ambassador to France. Franklin's first goal (aside from creating the U.S. foreign service on the fly) was to secure financial and military aid. He went about doing it in the same manner as he played chess.
An epic yarn spanning most of the 18th century, the series follows Franklin's career from humble beginnings in Boston to international superstardom: first as a scientist and revolutionary, and then as a founding father and America's first diplomat to France.
Acting
Richard Easton's Franklin: horny, brilliant, deeply unserious.
Production
Lavish recreations of 18th-century Parisian salons.
Creator
Ronald Blumer
Colm Feore
narrator
Richard Easton
Benjamin Franklin
Dylan Baker
Benjamin Franklin
Gerry Bamman
Paul Wentworth
Blair Brown
Jane Mecom
Anthony Cochrane
George
Peter Donaldson
John Adams
Ronald Guttman
Le Comte de Vergennes
Anthony Heald
Jonathan Austin
Jefferson Mays
Elkanah Watson
Brian Murray
Viscount Stormont
Martin Rayner
Robert Whittington
Natacha Roi
Mme. Britton de Jouy
Sebastian Roché
French Aristocrat
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Colm Feore recorded his narration in three separate sessions over eight months because production kept finding better Franklin letters in archives.
This aired during the post-9/11 'founding fathers as superheroes' era, when PBS deliberately emphasized Franklin's spy-craft to feel relevant.
US
