This week: Michael Douglas as Ben Franklin, an animated ‘Good Times,’ and ‘Fallout’ debuts
1. Michael Douglas stars as Benjamin Franklin in “Franklin,” a miniseries based on Stacy Schiff ’s 2005 book “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America.” The eight-parter gives us the American polymath during the eight years he spent in France in 1776 trying to sway that country into supporting American independence. Noah Jupe costars as his precocious 16year-old grandson, William Temple Franklin, known as Temple, who comes along as his secretary. It premieres Friday on Apple TV+.
2. Keepin’ your head above water/ Making a wave when you can . . . Yup, it’s an animated reboot of Norman Lear’s 1970s CBS sitcom “Good
Times,” this time including a new generation of the Evans family of Chicago. The voice cast features Yvette Nicole Brown, JB Smoove, and Jay Pharoah. The late Lear was a producer of the new show, and he provides a guest voice appearance in the first episode. The series arrives Friday on Netflix.
3. Another videogame franchise comes to TV. Amazon’s “Fallout,” created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan of “Westworld,” is based on the postapocalyptic RPG series. Set in a devastated Los Angeles after a nuclear war, it has the retro-futuristic visual style of the games but tells an original story involving the people who have spent their lives in fallout bunkers. The cast includes Walton Goggins, Kyle MacLachlan, Ella Purnell, Michael Emerson, Sarita Choudhury, Leslie Uggams, and Zach Cherry, and it premieres on Thursday.
4. Two seasons of the British sitcom “Hapless” arrive in the states on Wednesday, on Peacock. The show stars Tim Downie as a neurotic, argumentative journalist for a fictional Jewish newspaper called The Jewish Enquirer. He has pet peeves, and awkwardness often ensues. In the UK reviews, the series has been compared to “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which means it has arrived on these shores at the exact right moment.
5. Robert Downey Jr. plays a number of roles in
“The Sympathizer,” an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The seven-parter, both a thriller and a satire, follows the struggles of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the last days of the Vietnam War and then his new life in Hollywood. Sandra Oh and Hoa Xuande also star in the miniseries, which premieres Sunday at 9 on HBO and Max.