Highlights Archive

Being Texan: A Texas Monthly Special • WXXI-TV

Texas Monthly writers explore people and places at the intersections of identity, history, progress, and change.

Being Texan: A Texas Monthly Special airs Friday, October 24 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXXI app.

Stories include the ghost town of Terlingua, the last surviving ninepin bowling alleys, a ranching industry under threat, the unexpected discovery of a rare type of coyote, a woman who overturned state braiding laws, and a mild-mannered librarian who fought to save the Big Thicket.

Nature “Walrus: Life on Thin Ice” • WXXI-TV

Follow a paleontologist on an Arctic adventure to uncover the hidden lives of walrus and the threats they face as climate change shrinks the sea ice.

Nature “Walrus: Life on Thin Ice” Season 2 airs Wednesday, October 22 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

The walrus is one of the Arctic’s most enigmatic animals. With three-foot long tusks and a droopy mustache, everyone knows what these marine mammals look like, but few ever see them in the wild. For Kirk Johnson, a paleontologist and Sant Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the walrus has been a creature close to his heart for 40 years.

Most of the world’s walrus, about 250,000 of them, live in the frigid seas between Russia and Alaska. Johnson embarks on an Arctic adventure to uncover the hidden lives of these lumbering giants and the threats they face as climate change shrinks the sea ice. He follows the fate of one young orphan, who is rescued and rehabilitated at the Alaska Sealife Center. What kind of future lies ahead for her, and for the walruses in the wild?

Frontline “The Rise of RFK” • WXXI-TV

The dramatic and controversial rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Frontline “The Rise of RFK” airs Tuesday, October 21 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the WXXI app.

How the scion of a storied dynasty endured tragedy and scandal, broke with the Democratic Party and his family, stoked conspiracy theories, and is reshaping government and public health.

America’s Stairway • WXXI-TV

This film places the historic Flight of Five locks on the Erie Canal in Lockport, New York, squarely in the American narrative as a symbol of a young and developing nation.

America’s Stairway airs Monday, October 20 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the WXXI app.

It draws a direct line between the Erie Canal, the Flight of Five, and the birth of American tourism to today’s heritage tourism industry, which is inextricably linked to community-based, grassroots preservation efforts and a community’s sense of place. In doing so, this is a story that resonates beyond time and geographic location.

Photo: South Street Seaport : Painting by William James Bennett, “View of South Street from Maiden Lane”
Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of New York

Art & Science Collide • WXXI-WORLD

Meet a few of the artists featured in Getty’s 2024–25 Southern California art event, PST ART.

Art & Science Collide airs Sunday, October 19 at 11 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the WXXI app.

The new documentary weaves together compelling stories of artists participating in the Getty’s groundbreaking 2024-2025 Southern California art event Pacific Standard Time – referred to locally as PST ART, where more than 60 deeply-researched exhibitions developed by arts organizations and scientific institutions throughout Southern California featured over 800 artists in mind-expanding explorations of the intersections of art and science, both past and present. Produced by PBS SoCal in association with Actual Films (“Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” “The White House Effect,” “Athlete A,” “An Inconvenient Sequel,” “The Island President and The Lost Boys of Sudan.”

Photo provided by PBS

Jeffrey’s Journey • WXXI-TV

When you’re faced with an incurable, debilitating and progressive disease, you have a choice to make. How do you live your life?

Jeffrey’s Journey airs Sunday, October 19 at 2:30 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXXI app.

When faced with an incurable, debilitating and progressive disease, you have a choice to make. How do you live your life? When Jeffrey McElfresh was a child, his feet and hands were gradually losing function. At age 41, he finally learned the name of his malady: Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a rare peripheral neuropathy that disrupts signals from the brain, causing muscles in the feet and hands to atrophy. Today, Jeffrey’s disability is apparent, yet he has adapted and built a meaningful life that eventually led him to become an adventure cyclist. Jeffrey’s Journey follows his story over 10 days as he cycles along the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. As he follows the river through old steel towns, beautiful valleys and forgotten burgs, Jeffrey gains insight into the land he’s traveling across and even more about himself.

This program is presented by Move to Include^TM, an award-winning national initiative to promote disability inclusion, representation, and accessibility in public media.

Photo: Jeffrey McElfresh rides through the industrial area along the Ohio River
Credit: Provided by APT

American Masters “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore” • WXXI-TV

Learn about the life and career of 4-time Emmy nominee Marlee Matlin as she shares her story in her native American Sign Language.

American Masters “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore airs Friday, October 17 at 4 p.m. and again on Saturday, October 18 at 3 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming on the WXXI app.

The documentary takes a closer look at Marlee Matlin’s life as a groundbreaking performer, whose meteoric and tumultuous rise to fame started in 1987 when she became the first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award for her role in Children of a Lesser God. At the age of twenty-one, Matlin was thrust into the national spotlight, becoming for many Americans the first Deaf person they saw on TV and overnight becoming the de-facto representative of the Deaf community.

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore boasts never-before-seen home video filmed over the course of Matlin’s 37-year career by her longtime interpreter and producing partner Jack Jason—including footage of Matlin behind the scenes on the sets of some of her most iconic roles including Children of a Lesser God, The West Wing and Seinfeld. For the first time in her own language, Matlin will reflect on her relationship with actor William Hurt, her place in the Deaf community, her fight for roles and accessibility in Hollywood and what it means to be “the first.”

Photo: Marlee Matlin
Credit: Provided by PBS

Learning Beyond the Walls: On the Frontlines of the Future • Facebook Live

Tune in to hear how people and communities are redefining what’s possible, reclaiming independence, creativity, and collective futures rooted in equity and imagination.

WXXI and Move to Include^TM invite you to join POV for Learning Beyond the Walls: On the Frontlines of the Future — a LIVE conversation with filmmakers Samuel Habib & Dan Habib (The Ride Ahead), Kelly Anderson (Emergent City), and community leader Elizabeth Yeampierre, moderated by Ana Portnoy.

This timely discussion explores how education reaches beyond textbooks into communities, movements, and everyday acts of resistance.

Date: Thursday, Oct 23
Time: 3 – 4PM ET
LIVE on POV’s Facebook (@povdocs) & YouTube (@povborders)