X-Files fans may have felt last month's season
finale - featuring a climacticsmooch between
proud parents Mulder(David Duchovny) and Scully
(GillianAnderson) - was out of this world, but
Duchovny saw it as a major kiss-off.

"We were doing the last two episodes and I felt
like, 'This isn't aresolution for my character,'"
the Evolution star tells TV Guide Online. "'We're
resolving things that had nothing to do with
Mulder.' I felt like it was a lost opportunity.
I felt like the last two episodes could have
been a real send-off for Mulder."

Part of the problem, insiders suggest, is that
X-Files creator Chris Carter didn't know for sure
whether the two-part finale was Mulder's swan
song. It was only last week that Duchovny put
the truth out there, announcing that he would
not be returning for a ninth season in any
capacity. But the actor shoots down that theory,
noting that he "told Chris the whole year that I
was 99 percent sure that I wasn't coming back."

Regarding the much-talked-about buss,
Duchovny reveals that he and Anderson had
precious little time to reach for those breath
mints. "They have this idea over at the X-Files
that stuff might get stolen and put on the
Internet," he groans. "It p---es me off because
I'm an actor, and I'd like to have the scenes
more than two hours before I play it. It's all a big
mystery.

"I think it was written that Scully gives Mulder a
kiss on the forehead," he continues of the
tender parting shot. "I was so confused at that
point that I didn't trust my feelings about it. I
have so many personal feelings about it; it was
eight years of my life. I didn't know what would
be an appropriate ending. [Director] Kim
Manners and I were discussing it and he said,
'We've done that a hundred times, the whole
hand-holding and kiss on the forehead. We
should do a real kiss.' And I thought, 'Yeah, that
feels right. At least it's something different at the
end.'"

But is it really the end? Duchovny says that he
hasn't ruled out reprising his role in another
X-Files movie. "If they wrote a good X-Files
script, I would look at it the way I look at any
script," he says, "which is, I would really want it
to be good." - Michael Ausiello with AmyHelmes
[TV Guide Online]