started directing for television while doing second unit work for Stephen Cannell Productions in 1982. After leaving Cannell's company in 1987, he sent out videos of his work, looking for a job. Impressed by one of Bowman's Stringray episodes, producer Robert H. Justman hired him to direct for Star Trek: The Next Generation during its first season. Bowman was only 27 years old at the time, and in his first meeting with executive producer Rick Berman, Berman mistook him for the pizza delivery boy. He was originally slated to direct the 10th episode of ''Star Treks first season, but one of the series' directors, Donald Petrie, dropped out early to direct the film Mystic Pizza. This gave Bowman the opportunity to direct the fourth episode of the season, "Where No One Has Gone Before". Bowman investigated the sets two weeks early to begin prepping the episode. Bowman told Starlog magazine, "Walking through those empty sets was very intimidating for me. I kept asking myself how I was going to do justice to these sets, tell the story and still get the performances from the cast." Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was so impressed with the dailies for the episode, that he made an appearance on set to praise Bowman in front of the cast and crew. Immediately following directing "Where No One Has Gone Before", Bowman directed an episode of the Fox Broadcasting Company's television series Werewolf. Berman and Justman had planned to hire Bowman for only a single episode, but his agent worked out a two-episode deal, leading to Bowman directing the ninth Star Trek episode, "The Battle". 1988 was a busy year for Bowman. In addition to directing five more episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation that year, he also directed episodes for Werewolf, Sonny Spoon, The Highwayman, Probe, and 21 Jump Street. On the strength of his direction for the television series Parker Lewis Can't Lose, he was offered to direct his first feature film, Airborne, a coming-of-age story involving teenage rollerbladers. The X-Files After seeing a commercial for The X-Files pilot episode, Bowman called his agent and told him he wanted to direct for the series. He was asked to direct the episode "Gender Bender" for The X-Files by executive producer R. W. Goodwin, who had previously worked with Bowman on the series Mancuso, F.B.I.. X-Files creator and executive producer Chris Carter invited Bowman to