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Paul Shapiro

Director Paul Shapiro got his start in the early '80s, working on a number of Canadian TV dramas, including the sports picture "Hockey Night," the runaway child tale "Clown White," and (most notably) 1986's "The Truth About Alex," which starred a post-"Happy Days" Scott Baio. But Shapiro found his true calling as a director of episodic television, starting with a one-off job on the adventure-comedy "Adderly." He journeyed all over the stylistic map early on, working on episodes of the sci-fi adventure "RoboCop," the thriller "The Client," and (perhaps more notably) the Golden Globe-nominated, police-driven comedy-drama "The Commish," starring Michael Chiklis. But, as he would demonstrate more fully in the 2000s, Shapiro's aesthetic comfort zone would prove to be shows with elements of sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery. His first major toe-dip into those styles came on the critically acclaimed crime-drama "Millennium," of which he directed five total episodes. With that major credit on his resume, Shapiro went on to helm episodes of the mystery-romance "Roswell," the action-packed sci-fi drama "Threshold," the updated version of Rod Serling's classic creep-out "The Twilight Zone," and the sci-fi classic "The X-Files." Though Shapiro's TV work has tended to be of the single-episode variety, he managed to direct multiple episodes of the Clark Kent-centric "Smallville" and the comic-based action-adventure "Flash Gordon."