by Kevin Dickson

As fans of "The X-Files" know perfectly well, there's no such thing as the truth. Every answer raises two new questions, and while the truth may be out there, it isn't likely to turn up in here.

Thus the weeks of rumor, speculation and downright disinformation about the future of the show played out remarkably like an episode from the series itself, right down to an earnest performance by David Duchovny as ... well, in this case as himself.

When Duchovny finally relented and agreed to one more go-round on the show -- though he will appear in only about half of the next season's episodes -- it resolved the matter of his status for the moment, but left open as many questions as it answered.

For example, is Duchovny really happy to be back?

During the actor's very public feud with Fox over his return to his role as Agent Mulder, he often cited creative staleness as one of his reasons for wanting to leave the show. At the same time, however, he kept insisting he wasn't opposed to continuing to play the character -- especially on the big screen, where his heart clearly lies after his assured performance this year opposite Minnie Driver in "Return to Me."

"I'm just trying to choose good material," he says with a shrug. "Something that warrants four months of my life doing. If it was an FBI agent and it was the best script I'd read in months, I'd probably do it."

Duchovny is only the latest in a long string of television actors to try their luck in the movies and, to judge by the box-office failure of 1997's "Playing God" and the modest receipts of "Return to Me," he may find it difficult to make the transition.

But he brushes off the question with an annoyed wave of his hand.

"But you see," he says with bemused patience, "that's not true -- if you look at it, it's such a terrible cliche. Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin -- try to name the actors that didn't come out of television, it's much harder.

"The reason actors come out of TV is it's probably easier to get work in TV when you're first starting out. Demi Moore started in a soap opera -- soap opera is a lot worse than being in `The X-Files!' "

The actor laughs.

"So I would think that the odds of coming out of a soap opera are pretty bad," he says, "and you've got Demi Moore and Robin Wright and all these people."

Duchovny won't even acknowledge the struggles of the two highest-profile television defectors of recent years, "ER's" George Clooney and "NYPD Blue's" David Caruso.

"Clooney's doing great," he says sternly. "He's working with David Russell, he's working with Soderbergh. David Caruso -- he's a hero in my book, he could be making millions of dollars, but he left ("NYPD Blue") because he wasn't being treated well and it wasn't creative for him anymore.

"Just because he hasn't been in a hit movie doesn't mean he's not a great actor," Duchovny insists. "It's luck whether or not you're going to be in a good movie, whether or not you're going to be in a movie that makes money. It has nothing to do with TV."

"The X-Files" took a lot of heat, from both critics and fans, when it shifted location from Vancouver to Los Angeles this past season. The fans bemoaned the loss of spooky, misty locales, while the critics perceived a loss of purpose, alleging that the series had lost its impetus.

Both factions overlooked the truth, which is that "The X-Files" has always been patchy, in the great way that only truly innovative, imaginative and risk-taking television can be.

From the first season on, each episode of "The X-Files" has had the potential either to seize the imagination of the viewer or to fail miserably trying. This experimental unpredictability has provided much of the show's edge. Fortunately the failures have been few and far between.

In hindsight "The X-Files" hit the nail on the head rather consistently this season. Among a slew of killer-weirdo episodes, there was the incredibly inspired "Cops" hybrid, a perfect example of a television show delighting in the deconstruction of its own myths, and also in its brilliant use of the new Los Angeles location.

That episode was scripted so cleverly that many viewers thought that it was ad-libbed -- a suggestion that draws a laugh from Duchovny.

"Oh, not at all," he says. "Totally scripted."

Duchovny originally had been slated to direct that episode, but it didn't work out.

"I just had too much other work," he says. "To direct you need to not be in the preceding episode, so you can do prepping, and they just didn't write me out."

He did get to step behind the camera -- and behind the typewriter, since he also scripted -- for the wild and risky episode in which Mulder and Scully went to Hollywood and visited the set of a movie based on their own lives.

The episode featured Garry Shandling as "Mulder" and Tea Leoni, Duchovny's real-life wife, as "Scully."

"She didn't need any direction," the actor says enthusiastically. "She was really phenomenal -- she'd do stuff that I would never think of to tell her, and she's just really always right, she's gifted."

Nonetheless, he's hesitant to say that he and Leoni, who last year welcomed Madelaine West Duchovny to the family, will be working together professionally in the future.

"Objectively I'd like to work with her, because I think she's so great," Duchovny says cautiously. "Personally I would be a little afraid to work with her, because I think it's a little icky when you start using your relationship publicly.

"If I wasn't married to her, she'd be the first person I would want to work with," he says. "Because I'm married to her, it's just a little weird when you start using yourself in that way, or your life or your relationship."

Duchovny is usually as solemn offscreen as Mulder is onscreen, but in the past few years "The X-Files" has offered occasional glimpses of his dry sense of humor. In the Hollywood episode, for example, Duchovny made fun of his resemblance to Richard Gere in one of the series' funniest moments.

There is a certain resemblance, he admits, but he adds that fans rarely mistake him for Gere.

"Somebody thought I was a Baldwin brother the other day," he says, laughing. "It was funny, because he said, `I know your brother, Danny,' and my brother's name is Danny. `He grew up on Long Island and I grew up in New York.'

"All of a sudden I realized he meant Daniel Baldwin!"

It's all very "X-Files." A moment of insight -- but new questions follow close on its heels: Does that make Duchovny Alec? William? Stephen?

Is it too soon to start speculating about whether the show will be back after next year?