Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin, Potential ‘Fire Country’ Spinoff, Animated ‘Good Times,’ Woody Woodpecker and Dora

Series Premiere

Oscar and Emmy winner Michael Douglas lends his considerable charisma to one of history’s most colorful figures in a lavish if leisurely eight-part period docudrama. Franklin depicts Founding Father and renaissance man Benjamin Franklin as he embarks on a risky diplomatic mission in 1776 during the darkest days of the American Revolution to woo the French government and its king to support the rebels in their war against the British king. With his teenage grandson Temple (Noah Jupe) in tow, Franklin wins over hearts and minds, and more than a few ladies, with his wit and wiles. Launches with three episodes. (See the full review.)

9/8c

The hit rescue drama may soon be expanding its reach. In classic TV tradition, Fire Country introduces a new character—deputy sheriff Mickey (Homeland’s Morena Baccarin)—around whom it has been reported a spinoff is being developed. In her first appearance, we learn Mickey has a connection with the Leone family when she arrives to investigate a fire-camp inmate’s escape from Three Rock. Series star/creator Max Thieriot directs the episode.

Series Premiere

The late, great Norman Lear is listed among the executive producers (with Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane and Stephen Curry) of an edgy adult animated update of Lear’s groundbreaking 1970s sitcom about a Black family living in Chicago’s housing projects. The new Good Times is set amid our own turbulent times, with guns, drugs and gangs challenging the fourth generation of the Evans family occupying Apartment 17C. The voice cast includes Curb Your Enthusiasm’s J.B. Smoove and Community’s Yvette Nicole Brown as Reggie and Beverly Evans, the heads of their nuclear family that includes teenage Junior (Jay Pharoah), activist daughter Grey (black-ish breakout Marsai Martin) and Slink Johnson as breast-obsessed infant Dalvin, a kindred spirit to Family Guy’s Stewie. Lear appears in a cameo in the eighth episode, his last such appearance before his death at 101 in December.

Movie Premiere

A sequel to 2017’s live action/animated Woody Woodpecker movie puts the cackling bird from the classic cartoons into new slapstick situations, when Woody (voiced by Eric Bauza) is banned from the forest and finds a new home at Camp Woo Hoo. Weeds’ Mary-Louise Parker is somehow on hand, with Kevin Michael Richardson providing the voice of Buzz Buzzard and Tom Kenny as Wally Walrus. “Camp” seems to be the operating principal on this project.

Series Premiere

Nickelodeon’s adorable Dora the Explorer returns in a CG-animated streaming series, with the bilingual adventurer (voiced by Diana Zermeño) and her monkey pal Boots (Asher Colton Spence) traversing a colorful rainforest in 26 11-minute episodes. The original Dora, Kathleen Herles, provides the voice of Dora’s Mami.

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• RuPaul’s Drag Race (8/7c, MTV): The eliminated queens are back for a “LipSync Lalaparuza” showdown, with $50,000 at stake.
• True Crime Watch: Dateline NBC (9/8c) revisits the 1991 murder of Pennsylvania mom Joy Hibbs, found stabbed and strangled in a house fire, a crime left unsolved for more than 30 years. ABC’s 20/20 (9/8c) reports on the shocking 2012 murder in West Virginia of 16-year-old Skylar Neese, whose best friends confessed to the crime.
• Best Bite in Town (9/8c, Food Network): Exec producer Guy Fieri deputizes his Carnival Eats pal Noah Cappe to travel with fellow foodies to sample the best grub in a given town—first stop: New Haven, Connecticut—and then present the best dishes to a panel of judges who’ll decide which is the best bite.
• Cesasr Millan: Better Human Better Dog (9/8c, National Geographic): The dog whisperer begins a new season by matching a rescue dog with a worthy family.
• Blue Bloods (10/9c, CBS): What does voodoo have to do with a homicide? Detectives Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) and Baez (Marisa Ramirez) are about to find out.
• Ben Folds Presents: Declassified (10/9c, PBS): A new edition of Next at the Kennedy Center presents Ben Folds’ long-running series with the National Symphony Orchestra, reimagining popular music through an orchestral lens, with guest artists Jacob Collier, Laufey and dodie. Preceded by the Season 5 premiere of the Great Performances series Now Hear This (9/8c), with conductor Scott Yoo visiting musical prodigies, including Singapore’s 16-year-old violin virtuoso Chloe Chua.
• Real Time with Bill Maher (10/9c, HBO): Bill Maher welcomes TV legend William Shatner for a one-on-one interview about the new documentary You Can Call Me Bill and his upcoming digital album So Fragile, So Blue.

ON THE STREAM:

• Manhunt (streaming on Apple TV+): Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth (Masters of the Air’s Anthony Boyle) makes his last stand in the penultimate episode of the historical docudrama. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton’s (Tobias Menzies) next challenge: Proving he didn’t act alone.
• The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy (streaming on Apple TV+): The Schitt’s Creek star wraps his second season on the road with a visit to Spain, where soccer is king, prompting a meeting with sports icon Héctor Bellerin.
• Movies making their streaming debut include the musical biopic Bob Marley: One Love on Paramount+ and the comic thriller Argylle on Apple TV+, starring Bryce Dallas Howard as an author of espionage novels who ends up in her own spy story.