East Renton-based filmmaker John Forsen had both a personal and practical reason for telling the story of Seattle over 3\u200a\u00bd hours in 93 video shorts ranging in duration from one to four minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came up with the idea because \u2026 (I) wondered, how do you tell the history of a place?\u201d Forsen says. \u201cI\u2019m not the biggest fan of these long documentaries that go on and on.\u201d<\/p>\n
His three-episode \u201cSeattle: A History in Short Stories\u201d concludes with its final episode on Tacoma\u2019s KBTC-TV at 9 p.m. Thursday (streams next day at kbtc.org<\/a>). In addition to its TV audience, the series was created with another constituency in mind.<\/p>\n \u201cTeachers can play something about the history of the Black movement in, say, three minutes, and spend the rest of the classroom time talking about it,\u201d Forsen says. \u201cThat each episode is made up of individual short stories is what makes this a unique new way to do a history documentary. \u2026 I call these shorts small, little appetizers (of history) to get the viewer to say, \u2018I want to know more about that.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n Although Seattle\u2019s Cascade PBS station, KCTS-TV, has no plan to air \u201cA History in Short Stories,\u201d Forsen says the series remains available to the outlet should programmers change their minds. The series will also air on The Seattle Channel, King County TV and as part of Alaska Airlines\u2019 in-flight entertainment offerings, and the show has been made available to municipal television stations. Episodes 1<\/a> and 2<\/a> are already streaming on YouTube; Episode 3 will join them on June 18.<\/p>\n In addition to airing the full episodes, KBTC and The Seattle Channel are airing individual shorts from each episode around programming that doesn\u2019t conform to traditional 30- or 60-minute program lengths.<\/p>\n Each \u201cA History in Short Stories\u201d episode comprises 28 to 36 short films. The hourlong first episode, chronicling Seattle history from 15,000 B.C.E. to 1909, debuted on KBTC in June 2025. Episode 2 (1909-62), also an hour, premiered in September. The first two episodes will repeat on KBTC at 7 and 8 p.m. Thursday leading into the 90-minute final episode that offers quick bite stories on Seattle\u2019s second World\u2019s Fair in 1962, building the Space Needle, Black settlers who moved to Seattle after World War II and the orca Namu at the Seattle Aquarium.<\/p>\n Forsen credits the series\u2019 diverse team of consultants and historians with coming up with the show\u2019s topics. Forsen then went out to experts in each subject and asked them to write that segment. Over the series, 58 writers contributed segments narrated by 63 people.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole idea was each writer has their own personality, so I told the writers, \u2018This is your story in your voice,\u2019 \u201d Forsen says. \u201cAnd then the narrators gave it their twist, too.\u201d<\/p>\n This new, third episode features more Seattle celebrity narrators than the first two installments, including Jean Smart (\u201cHacks\u201d), Bill Nye (\u201cBill Nye the Science Guy\u201d), Lily Gladstone<\/a> (\u201cKillers of the Flower Moon<\/a>\u201d), Joel McHale<\/a> (\u201cCommunity\u201d), Jeff Probst<\/a> (\u201cSurvivor\u201d) and Rick Steves<\/a> (\u201cRick Steves\u2019 Europe\u201d).<\/p>\n Forsen offered each of the celebs options, giving them several segments to pick from. Smart chose to narrate two segments, one on Namu and the other on Seattle\u2019s changing culture and loss of iconic buildings.<\/p>\n