Season 8 of The X-Files is shaping up to be the strangest and scariest yet with the fade-out of star David Duchovny.

Strolling through the Fox lot in Los Angeles one recent afternoon, David Duchovny is all smiles. He hasn’t been around the set much lately, and he’s delighted by his surprise encounters with several crew members of The X-Files (Fox, Sundays, 9 pm/ET). "I can’t stay away," quips the star, who popped in today for a photo shoot. "It’s like I’ve graduated from college and have come back to see everybody."

Actually, it’s more like he’s been on summer vacation, which is exactly what Duchovny had in mind back in May when he agreed at the last minute to return to his role as Fox Mulder for an eighth season of the show in a part-time capacity. "I’ve been home at six o’clock the last four months in a row," says the actor, who lives in Malibu with his wife, actress Téa Leoni, and their 1-year-old daughter, Madelaine West Duchovny. "I was never home at dinnertime before." Of course, he can certainly afford to take the family out to the finest restaurants. Between his salary this season and the settlement of his acrimonious lawsuit, in which he accused Fox of selling X-Files reruns at a low cost to its FX cable channel, Duchovny will reportedly earn almost $30 million.

While admitting he feels "a little nostalgic, a little sad" about detaching from the show that made him famous, Duchovny says the time has simply come to make a break. He contrasts his attitude with that of X-Files newcomer Robert Patrick. "He’s really excited to be here, and I think it’s good to have someone come in and smack everybody and say, ‘Wake up! This is a great job!’ I wasn’t gonna be that guy."

Turning 40 in August also helped put things in perspective. "I thought, ‘I’ve got 15 years of viable working time, no matter how much yoga I do,’" Duchovny explains. "‘What do I want to do with the rest of my working life?’" And what did he come up with? "I haven’t figured it out yet," he confesses, laughing. "I just know what I don’t want to do." Duchovny’s currently filming director Ivan Reitman’s Evolution, a comedy in which he plays a college professor who has to save the world from — yes — an alien organism. "It’s a really funny script," Duchovny says, comparing the movie more to Men in Black than The X-Files. After Evolution, he’ll put on his Mulder suit and pick up his flashlight for the last six episodes of the season.

And after that, who knows? He’s up for doing another X-Files movie. And believe it or not, the actor, though somewhat doubtful, doesn’t entirely close the door on a ninth season of the series. The current arrangement, he says, "is working exactly the way I wanted it to. I get to do a movie while I’m doing the show." He pauses. "If I could work out something like that, I wouldn’t rule it out." Cue the creepy music.