Highlights Archive

January’s CREATE Showcases • WXXI-CREATE

Enjoy these marathons with your favorite CREATE celebrities throughout January.

CREATE Showcases air Fridays from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on WXXI-CREATE.

New Year Refresh – January 3-5
Embrace calm in the new year and connect with your mind and body in restorative routines from YNDI Yoga, Yoga in Practice, and Classical Stretch: By Essentrics.

CREATE Turns 20 – January 10-12
It’s CREATE’s birthday, and they’re kicking off a new decade with some of the CREATE hosts who have been here since the beginning. Raise a glass—and maybe enjoy a slice of cake or two—as we enjoy some festive episodes to start our 20th year.

Cook Your Best in 2025 – January 17-19
Can’t wait to use those new kitchen goodies from the holiday season? America’s Test Kitchen is ready with menu ideas that will keep you creating vibrant and delicious meals all year long.

Samantha Brown‘s Top Travel Tips– January 24-26
Samantha Brown makes it easy to let your wanderlust take the lead with some practical travel tips and a few Places to Love. Get your travel wish list ready!

Homemade Live!– January 31-February 2
Chef Joel Gamoran and celebrity guests are bringing the stories — and laughs — behind some of their most cherished recipes as they create these special dishes live on set. Join the fun with ten back-to-back episodes of Homemade Live!

NEXT AT THE KENNEDY CENTER “Sara Bareilles: New Year’s Eve with the National Symphony Orchestra & Friends” • WXXI-TV

Acclaimed singer, songwriter and actress Sara Bareilles takes the stage at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra for an enchanting evening of song and celebration in this New Year’s Eve special.

NEXT AT THE KENNEDY CENTER “Sara Bareilles: New Year’s Eve with the National Symphony Orchestra & Friends” airs Tuesday, December 31 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

From her first smash hit “Love Song” to her Broadway songwriting and later performing debut with the musical “Waitress,” Bareilles’ amazing artistry has been recognized with multiple Grammy and Tony awards and nominations. She will be joined by special guests Rufus Wainwright, Emily King, and David Ryan Harris for this career-spanning night.

Photo: Sara Bareilles performing with the National Symphony Orchestra/Credit: Mauricio Castro

The Five Demands • WXXI-TV

A riveting story about the student strike that changed the face of higher education. In April 1969, a small group of Black and Puerto Rican students shut down the City College of New York, an elite public university located in the heart of Harlem.

The Five Demands airs Monday, December 30 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Far more attention has been paid to white middle-class students in opposition to the Vietnam War, yet this protest had a more significant impact: the CCNY strikers were the vanguard of a national Black student movement that transformed the culture, mission, and curriculum of American higher education. Fueled by the revolutionary fervor sweeping the nation, the strike turned into an uprising, leading to the extended occupation of the campus, the cancelation of classes, the arrest of students, and the resignation of the college president. Told through the participants’ point of view, the film follows the students’ struggle against the institutional racism that, for over a century, had shut out people of color from this institution and other public universities.

Photo: Black and Puerto Rican students march through campus with the Puerto Rican flag/Credit: CCNY

Ready for London 2025 • WXXI-TV

Take an inside look into the planning, preparation, and excitement surrounding London’s New Year’s Day Parade.

Ready for London 2025 airs Friday, December 27 at 8:30 p.m. on WXXI-TV

Each year, more than 20 U.S. marching bands and a thousand varsity cheerleaders fill the streets of London for their moment in the global spotlight as they guide viewers into the New Year with entertaining performances. In preparation for bringing students to participate in London’s New Year’s Day Parade 2025, we follow the band directors of Western Kentucky University and Florida’s River View High School as they plan their trip to London. With six months to go, they walk the parade route and explore the city, to share their experience of how they are getting ready to take part in the prestigious annual event.

Joy – Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir • WXXI-TV

Featuring Broadway star Michael Maliakel and beloved screen and stage actress Lesley Nicol.

Joy – Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir airs Tuesday, December 17 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV. It repeats Sunday, December 22 at 2:30 p.m.

A treasured annual special, this edition weaves together uplifting music led by Maliakel and the world-famous Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square with powerful storytelling from Nicol and a cast of actors to elicit the spirit of the season for viewers of all ages and backgrounds.

Violent Femme’s 40th Anniversary with the Milwaukee Symphony • WXXI-TV

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of their self-titled debut album, the folk punk group Violent Femmes invited the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra to be their “back-up band” in this electrifying concert which mixes classical and rock.

Violent Femme’s 40th Anniversary with the Milwaukee Symphony airs Friday, December 13 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV

Violent Femmes formed in 1981 playing on the streets of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their first album, “Violent Femmes,” amplified teenage angst and alienation with such songs as “Kiss Off,” “Add It Up,” and “Gone Daddy Gone,” written by lead vocalist and guitarist Gordon Gano before he’d even gotten his driver’s license. Today, that debut release stands as a pillar of an American underground movement, and this concert pays homage to the band’s lasting influence.

Photo: Gordon Gano/Credit: Janelle Rominski/Milwaukee PBS

Christmas Carole • WXXI-TV

There’s a new Scrooge in town in this fresh twist on the Charles Dickens classic.

Christmas Carole airs Sunday, December 16 at 2 p.m. and 11 p.m. on WXXI-TV

BAFTA award-winner Suranne Jones (Scott & Bailey, Doctor Foster, Maryland) stars as the eponymous Carole, with a supporting cast that includes Mark Benton (Shakespeare & Hathaway) and comedian Jo Brand (The Great British Bake-Off: An Extra Slice) as the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Carole McKay is an entrepreneur and outspoken businesswoman whose online business selling all things festive has earned her a fortune, as well as the nickname “Christmas Carole.” But her success hasn’t made her a better human being. In fact, it’s made her worse. The truth is that Carole is a monumentally mean person. Positively Scrooge-like. And, just like Ebenezer, she doesn’t love Christmas at all. But this Christmas Eve, Carole’s past, present and future are about to collide in this heart-warming and hilarious tale, which is full of seasonal cheer for all the family.

Christmas Carole encores Sunday, December 15 at 2 p.m. and 11 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Photo: Suranne Jones as Carole/Credit: Provided by APT

Lucy Worsley’s Holmes vs. Doyle • WXXI-WORLD

A new three-part series featuring the popular British historian and lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan who seeks to answer why author Arthur Conan Doyle came to despise the character that made him rich and famous.

Lucy Worsley’s Holmes vs. Doyle airs Saturday, January 4 at 8 a.m. on WXXI-WORLD.

Throughout the series, Worsley explores the parallel lives of Doyle and Holmes in the historical context of their times. From the dying years of Victorian England, through the imperial crisis of the Boer war, the optimism of the early Edwardian years, to the trauma of the First World War, Arthur and Sherlock lived through them all.

Featured in over 60 original stories and countless film and television adaptations, Sherlock Holmes has intrigued and excited fans with his intellect and powers of deduction for more than a century. Over the course of three episodes, Worsley investigates the curious relationship between detective and author.

In Episode 1, “Doctor and Detective,” Lucy unearths Holmes’ origins in Doyle’s early life as a medical student in Edinburgh. She unpacks the early stories, revealing the dark underbelly of late Victorian Britain, from drug use to true crime. She explores how Doyle infused his stories with cutting-edge technological developments and traces the author’s growing disenchantment with his detective, heading to Switzerland to visit the site of one of the most famous deaths in literature.

In Episode 2, “Fact and Fiction,” Lucy explores Doyle’s desire to distance himself from Sherlock after the detective’s apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls. From the delights of the ski slopes to the horrors of the Boer War, she reveals how far Doyle went to make himself the hero of his own story. He even took on the role of detective himself in one of the most important legal cases of the 20th century.

In the finale, “Shadows and Sleuths,” Lucy investigates the return of Sherlock. Doyle began the Edwardian age delighting in all it had to offer, but as the First World War approached, the darkness of the later stories mirrored the reality of Doyle’s life. After losing his eldest son, he became an evangelist for spiritualism, and his star declined after a public spat with a famous magician. Sherlock Holmes, in contrast, found a life beyond his author on stage and screen.