Breaking the 4th wall with Northern Exposure

     Northern Exposure is a lot of things to a lot of people, and even more so to the hardcore fans (Mooseheads) that pick up on the shows moments of inexplicable genius, whether it be philosophical quotes and relations to Scientific theories or even discoveries of frozen world travelers and woolly mammoths along with the conundrums these events apply to the unique characters of the show. One of these cases actually led to the cast breaking through that magical, mysterious 4th wall.
    The 4th wall is that invisible wall between fiction and reality that separates you from the characters in any work of fiction. Imagine seeing a play in a theater which has 3 physical walls on stage with the 4th being that invisible wall at the front of the stage. So when Actors/Actresses break character and acknowledge their audience, they are essentially breaking through that 4th wall, which in Northern Exposure's case, the 4th wall being the camera.
    "War and Peace" is the 6th episode from the 2nd season which originally aired May 13, 1991. This particular episode showcases a Russian pop singer named Nikolai Appolanov which the town celebrates upon his arrival, all except U.S. astronaut and Korean War Vet Maurice Minnifield. This leads to a symbolic Russia vs. U.S.A. Chess match which Maurice very sorely loses and challenges Nikolai to a Duel of Pistols. As the anticipation builds throughout the rest of the episode, I remember being genuinely concerned about the characters as I didn't want any harm to come to either of them, but the anticipation built all the way to the moment they were to turn and fire before Dr. Joel Fleischman (or in this case Rob Morrow) breaks character to convey that they "play to a very sophisticated television audience" that isn't going to believe nor accept that the proposed duel would end in any fatality, to which a few other characters break through the 4th wall and add their two cents before coming to the conclusion that they should just move onto the next scene, Yeah, my jaw was on the floor.
    You can see more and more of "Breaking the 4th wall" writing especially in Comedy such as Wayne's World and Spaceballs. But as Technology advances, it appears that we're putting up even more walls as our Television set is considered the 5th wall, which beckons the question...How many walls can we put up, and what can the Cinema do to break through them?
                                                                                        See the scene for yourself here

                                                                     See even more examples of breaking through the 4th wall here.