Northern Exposure, Season 2

[Joel stops the duel between Maurice and Nikolai]

Joel:
Hold it, hold it, hold it! This is ridiculous! Hey, we play to a very sophisticated television audience. They know Maurice is not going to kill Nikolai, and they definitely know that Nikolai is not going to kill Maurice.

Maggie:
Wait a minute, Fleischman. You can't just take it upon yourself to step out of character. Nobody yelled 'cut'.

Shelly:
Joel's right. The duel is stupid.

Joel:
Can we just stick to the matter at hand?

Ruth-Anne:
How about the fifth revision? Where Nikolai's abscessed tooth starts acting up, and, well, he just cancels.

Shelly:
Glib and textually unwarranted.

Nikolai:
What if Maurice trips and kills someone else by mistake?

Maurice:
Oh, great, so I'm a klutz now, huh?

Maggie:
Look, if there's not a duel, then what is the point of this whole story?

Chris:
What's the point? The point is - man's tendency to war, but Joel here is asking us to step outside of certain events and say enough. Am I right?

Shelly:
Listen, whatever, it's getting cold out here.

Marilyn:
Why don't we go on to the next scene? It's a pretty good one.