User Reviews

Franklin, as taught in most history (up to this point) was quite a character - brilliant inventor, scientist, writer and diplomat. A bit of a hedonist from his time in Paris. And so on. However, I'd not known he owned slaves - and NEVER freed any of them! He stayed away from his wife for 10 years (the last of her life) in London A complex man to be sure, but an invaluable one to our country at the time.

Ken Burns again hits the sweet spot in storytelling. You should not miss this/

FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE - let someone else choose the musical scores for the Ken Burns documentaries! The score for Part 1 of this documentary and ALL episodes for the national parks documentary are maddeningly inadequate.

The spoken preamble goes on at length about the complexity of Franklin, the diversity of his interests, and the richness of his life -- all of which is undercut by one of the most simplistic, repetitive, and bland musical scores I've ever heard. Ugh. Eight minutes in, I turned on the closed captioning and turned off the sound. Franklin deserves SO much better.

I give it an "A" for content and an "F-" for the musical accompaniment.

I'm really prejudiced when it comes to Ken Burns. I know that certain groups are angry with him for the subject matter he chooses, but I think he is as good a story teller as has ever come down the pike. Here he lays out the time in Franklin's life, leading up to the revolution. He shows us the guy, warts and all. In addition to humble roots and a severely religious upbringing, he challenged himself to be one of the most influential people of all time. And while he was in most respect unselfish (foregoing patents on his inventions and discoveries), he had a harsh side when it came to certain members of his family, including a wife who held his estate together while he traipsed through Europe. Granted, she chose to stay behind. What is great here are the explanations for his fascination with the science of electricity. His creativity in the printing world. His willingness to stick his neck out for a cause. We get a view of his son and his accomplishments which we seldom hear about. Built into this is a very adept explanation of the causes of the American Revolution. Franklin could as easily have stayed in England but the British made some serious mistakes in their treatment of him. The next episode, I assume, will cover the Declaration of Independence and his role as a founding father.