BUILD Series

"Kinky Boots" tells the uplifting and heartwarming tale of Charlie Price (Conor Maynard), a young man reluctantly taking over his family’s struggling shoe factory and looking for a fresh idea. Charlie meets and finds inspiration in Lola and together, they discover that it takes a good friend to make a great pair. Maynard took to the stage to talk all things "Kinky Boots."

In "Life-Size 2," Grace Manning (Francia Raisa) is the 20-something CEO of Marathon Toys, a huge toy company started by her mother that is most famous for manufacturing the iconic Eve doll. Grace is also in the middle of her quarter-life crisis, realizing she is in over her head as CEO. To make matters worse, her wild-child ways are causing the company’s stock to plummet. With the help of her young next-door neighbor, Grace’s old Eve doll (Tyra Banks) magically awakens to help get Grace back on track and give her the confidence to be the woman and leader Eve knows Grace can be.

Nat Geo WILD’s ninth annual big cat event packs in six new premieres over three days, featuring surprising behaviors and inspiring stories of big cats around the world. More than a television event, "Big Cat Weekend" is an extension of the Big Cats Initiative, a long-term commitment by the National Geographic Society to halt the decline of big cats in the wild. This global program actively supports on-the-ground research and conservation projects to protect the planet’s top felines. Boone Smith is a 4th generation wildlife tracker who has traveled the world helping scientists study big cats and he joined BUILD.

Today we discuss Margaret Atwood’s upcoming sequel to “The Handmaid’’s Tale” (1:04) , America’s dissatisfaction with reality TV (7:21), “The American Meme" director Bert Marcus joins the table (13:56), the lighting of Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree (25:14), and "Empire" actress Nicole Ari Parker also joins the table (32:16).

Today we discuss Anna Kendrick’s surprising “Twilight” tweet (3:04), Amazon’s new “Modern Love” series (8:13), Lena Dunham’s interview with The Cut (14:09), Christmas tree eyebrows (19:47), and Chef Joseph Yoon joins the table to discuss edible insects at Brooklyn Bugs (25:02).

Mike Love, legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and co-founder/lead singer of The Beach Boys, released a new collection of holiday songs, "Reason For The Season." The 12-track album features an array of new holiday songs and Christmas classics that range from bright guitar and horn-filled pop and rock and tracks, and softer traditional carols and ballads. Sam Hollander (One Direction, Panic! at the Disco, Train) and Steve Greenberg (Hanson, AJR) produced five tracks on the album. This marks Love's second recording with Hanson as they collaborated on the summer single "It's OK" released in August 2018. Grammy-winning producer Michael Lloyd (Dirty Dancing) and The Beach Boys' musical director Scott Totten also served as producers on the album.

The third season of Netflix's "Travelers" finds Grant MacLaren (Eric McCormack) and his team of highly-trained operatives from the future pushed to the limit and dealing with themes of loyalty, trust, death, and the ever-growing power of Artificial Intelligence. With their existence now leaked to the world, the team must find a way to keep knowledge of the Travelers program from the general public, while continuing to perform missions under the watchful eye of the FBI. Each team member will face their own personal breaking point, all while trying to stop the Faction, hunt down elusive Traveler 001, and to save the world from a terrible future.

In preparation of his seventh studio album released earlier this year, Philadelphia singer-songwriter Amos Lee worked with nonprofit organizations Musicians On Call and Melodic Caring Project to play music bedside to hospital patients battling serious illnesses. The experience deeply affected him and inspired the new album, "My New Moon." But this is not a somber exercise; Lee gives each song a rocking, dignified treatment.

The news is filled with reports on the problems facing America, but it’s short on solutions. Enter Jon Dore, a Canadian comedian and self-described outsider who fancies himself the man with the plan in "Big Questions, Huge Answers with Jon Dore," a one-hour comedy special on Comedy Central. The special follows Dore as he workshops creative, if foolhardy, solutions to “the two biggest threats to our children’s safety: cyberbullying and predatory teachers.” Throughout the special, Jon is hilariously self-assured in his dubious undertakings.

From director Barry Jenkins ("Moonlight") comes "If Beale Street Could Talk" which is a timeless and moving love story set in the early-1970s Harlem that follows a couple's unbreakable bond and the African-American family's empowering embrace. A daughter and wife-to-be, Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne) vividly recalls the passion, respect and trust that have connected her and her artist fiancé Alonzo Hunt, who goes by the nickname Fonny (Stephan James). Through the unique intimacy and power of cinema, "If Beale Street Could Talk" honors the author's prescient words and imagery, charting the emotional currents navigated in an unforgiving and racially biased world as the filmmaker poetically crosses time frames to show how love and humanity endure.