10 Saddest TV Character Exits That Made You Cry

This Season 7 finale was written as a soft ending in case the show was not renewed, though you'd never know it from the quality. The show did return for two more seasons, but Mulder was only an intermittent character from then on. This exit, originally written as his total farewell, was the most fitting departure he could have received.

Having built up such a strong bond with partner Scully through their equally deadpan dynamic, Mulder is a character held fondly in the hearts of many sci-fi fans. Though there had always been tangents to uncover the mysteries of various monsters of the week, the main plot of The X Files was Mulder's investigation into the alien abduction of his sister. Along the way, he slowly unravelled government conspiracies around extraterrestrials, but never seemed to find the core of the truth that was out there.

In his exit, we seem him step willingly into the beam of a UFO to be carried off into the universe. Despite the fairly abject reality, this exit always had that happy-sad feel to it. Had the series ended then and there, you were left with the sense that somewhere out there, Mulder got his answers.