On the opposite end of the subtlety spectrum, you've got tracking shots like the ones in the X-Files episode "Triangle," one of the most ambitiously directed (by creator Chris Carter) episodes of series TV I've ever watched. The plot unfolded, à la True Detective, in two different time frames: 1939 and 1998. Carter, who also wrote the episode, staged the past- and present-tense versions of his heroes Scully and Mulder so that they seemed to be eerily in sync, at times even passing each other like ghosts in the same haunted house. As I wrote at the time, "The greatest minute of TV this year is the scene where Mulder runs down a hallway of the ocean liner with the 1939 Scully in tow while in 1998, the real Scully walks down the same hallway looking for Mulder. Thanks to the wonders of split-screen — i.e., two square images placed side-by-side — Mulder and the 1939 Scully turn a corner at the same time that our Scully turns it. The two parties seem to pass each other...In a single stunning image, Carter collapses time, space and identity — and makes a funny joke, too. It's the shot of the year." There's nothing in the True Detective shot that's as conceptually rich as what Carter did in "Triangle," but the showiness of it is very effective in its own right, because it departs from the meticulous puzzle-piece construction of the rest of the initial four episodes.

In this week's New York magazine, Carl Swanson uses the opening of an exhibition at the New Museum to explore the question of whether or not 1993 changed the world. As part of the issue, we interviewed several directors, musicians, actors, and TV showrunners for their thoughts and memories from two decades ago.

Writer/Producer Vince Gilligan was interviewed for nearly four hours in Burbank, CA. He talked about knowing that he wanted to be involved with storytelling, in film or television, from a very early age. He discussed his education at NYU Film school and winning a screenwriting award which lead to his first jobs in television writing. He discussed becoming a staff writer on The X-Files after a chance meeting with series’ creator Chris Carter. He spoke in great detail about his seven years as a writer, and later producer, on X-Files and described several specific episodes including the Emmy-winning "Memento Mori". He spoke about the short-lived spinoff, The Lone Gunmen, and how both series were affected by the events of 9/11. He spoke at length about his current project (then concluding season 4), the AMC drama Breaking Bad, which he created and produced. The interview was conducted by Jenni Matz on August 9, 2011.