Highlights Archive

Ball and Vase • WXXI-TV

Follow this ailing professor and magician named Ed Coleman during the holidays.

Ball and Vase airs Friday, December 5 at 10:30 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the PBS app and the WXXI app.

Ed is a 92-year-old, widowed World War II veteran who lives alone in a small apartment in Hoboken, N.J. He has been all but forgotten, but Ed has one thing that keeps him going – an upcoming visit by his grandson on Christmas. When a change in those plans finds Ed alone at a local pub he used to visit with his late wife, he discovers one last opportunity to reconnect with the world.

Repeats December 13 at 5:30 p.m., December 21 at 5:30 p.m., and December 27 at 10:30 p.m.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Live at the El Mocambo • WXXI-TV

An intense, high-powered performance from Stevie Ray’s early days, featuring “Testify,” “Texas Flood,” “Wham!,” “Pride and Joy,” and his fiery interpretation of Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).”

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Live at the El Mocambo airs Saturday, November 29 at 10:30 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming on the WXXI and PBS apps.

Filmed at the intimate El Mocambo club in Toronto, Canada, the program showcases the acclaimed rock and blues musician’s raw performance and his virtuoso guitar playing. Repeats December 5 at 9 p.m. ad December 6 at 4:30 p.m.

Deconstructing the Beatles • WXXI-TV

Acclaimed “Beatle-ologist” Scott Freiman guides you, step by step, on an educational journey through several of The Beatles’ milestone albums and the fascinating stories that accompanied them.

Deconstructing the Beatles airs Tuesday, December 2 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming on the WXXI and PBS apps.

No matter how much you know about the Beatles, there’s something new here for you. Episodes include “The Beatles Come to America,” “Deconstructing Rubber Soul,” and “A Trip Through Strawberry Fields.”

Repeats Sunday, December 7 at 10:30 p.m.

Mister Rogers: It’s You I Like • WXXI-TV

Join host Michael Keaton to celebrate “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” the pioneering children’s series that premiered nationally more than 50 years ago.

Mister Rogers: It’s You I Like airs Monday, December 1 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming on the WXXI and PBS apps.

Keaton worked as a stagehand and made appearances on the series in the 1970. Judd Apatow, Joyce DiDonato, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Kratt, John Lithgow, Yo-Yo Ma and son Nicholas Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Sarah Silverman, Esperanza Spalding and Caroll Spinney reveal their favorite memories from the series.

Thanksgiving Videos & Games with PBS KIDS!

Watch the Playlist: Celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends with PBS KIDS! Watch full episodes and clips from Wild Kratts, Nature Cat, Daniel Tiger, Cyberchase and more! See episodes from Arthur and Molly of Denali below.

Play An Elwood City Thanksgiving!

Play An Elwood City Thanksgiving Game at PBS KIDS

Watch An Arthur Thanksgiving with Activities

Arthur, DW and Baby Kate at a Thanksgiving dinner table with Dad in the background

Watch the full movie & explore Arthur activities

Watch Molly of Denali Thanks for Giving & Learn the Story of the Three Sister

The Story of the Three Sisters and Full Episode of Thanks for Giving

Unity and Hope: The Pride of the HBCU • YouTube

For nearly 200 years, historically Black colleges and universities have helped break cycles of poverty and build the Black middle class. This past September, Rochester hosted the second annual ‘Baldwin Richardson Foods Frederick Douglass HBCU Football Classic’, ushering in a tide of Black excellence and opportunity for Rochester’s youth.

This WXXI production was funded by a public media partnership led by Maryland Public Television with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is part of the national project HBCU Week NOW. HBCU Week NOW is a YouTube channel that presents films about the under-told stories of sacrifice, courage, innovation, and hope that chronicle HBCU contributions to science, medicine, history, education, civil rights, the arts, music, sports, and more! Subscribe to the @HBCUWeekNow YouTube channel for more inspiring HBCU stories.

The Great Escaper on Masterpiece • WXXI-TV

The Great Escaper tells the true story of Bernard Jordan, who made global headlines in the summer of 2014. He had staged a “great escape” from his care home to join fellow war veterans on a beach in Normandy, commemorating their fallen comrades at the D-Day Landings 70th anniversary.

The Great Escaper airs Sunday, November 23 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Michael Caine and the late, two-time Oscar® winner Glenda Jackson star as Bernard Jordan and his wife, Rene. Bernie’s adventure, spanning a mere 48 hours, marked the culmination of his 60-year marriage to Rene. While Bernie is on his trip to Normandy, Rene recalls their younger days and falling in love during World War II.

Bernie’s story captured the imagination of the world as he embodied the defiant, “can-do” spirit of a generation that was fast disappearing. But of course, it wasn’t the whole story. It was an inspirational but sanitized retelling of one man’s need to come to terms with the lasting trauma of war. The Great Escaper celebrates Bernie and Rene’s enduring love but always with an eye to the lessons we might learn from the Greatest Generation.

Rick Steves’ Heart of Italy • WXXI-TV

Join Rick Steves as he delves deep into the Italian heartland.

Rick Steves’ Heart of Italy airs Saturday, November 22 at 4 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

In Rick Steves’ Heart of Italy, Rick delves deep into the Italian heartland – the place where la dolce vita is a way of life. Starting in Umbria, he connects with rustic, traditional culture: sleeping at an agriturismo (a farmhouse inn), seeing how prosciutto and pecorino cheese are made (and eaten), and hiking down into ancient and fragrant wine cellars. Then he tours Assisi, with its inspirational story of St. Francis, its stop-and-smell-God’s-roses spirituality, its delicate Giotto masterpieces, and its awe-inspiring basilica. In Siena, Rick enjoys a front-row seat at its wild horse race – the venerable Palio – and marvels at cultural treasures from the city’s glory days, when it rivaled Florence for dominance in Tuscany. He finishes with the ultimate Riviera getaway: the Cinque Terre, where he gets to know each of the ‘five lands’ – from the dramatic, vineyard-surrounded Vernazza to hardscrabble Riomaggiore, to the pint-sized resort of Monterosso. Fishing for anchovies, sipping wine out of rustic barrels, bringing flowers to hilltop cemeteries, and savoring twinkling Mediterranean vistas, Rick visits his favorite stretch of Mediterranean coastline. From hill towns to harbors, and from vino rosso to Giotto, Rick Steves’ Heart of Italy savors the good life in the Italian heartland.