 As such, a story was devised in which his involvement would be light.This resulted in the decision to write, for the second year in a row, an episode focused on Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi).Howard Gordon, having written the previous Skinner-centric episode, "Avatar", joined Spotnitz and the two wrote the episode over a weekend while another Gordon-written episode, "Synchrony", was in production.