Helen Hunt: Not So Mad About Critics?

Mad About You has been off the air for more than a year now, but TV critics still cite the comedy as a perfect example of a show that overstayed its welcome in American living rooms. But don't expect Oscar-winner Helen Hunt — who, along with co-star Paul Reiser, earned $22 million for the show's ratings- and quality-challenged final season — to apologize for not quitting sooner.

"I didn't feel that way," she tells TV Guide Online. "What can I say? Some people think it got better as they went along. I thought it got more interesting, actually. I thought the marriage had gotten to a place where they had to start going through difficult things like fertility... [So], I don't regret it."

Hunt — who received an equally severe tongue-lashing from critics for her most recent film, Pay It Forward — admits that the decision to take Mad About You into its seventh year was fueled mostly by a need for closure. "At the end of the sixth year, [Paul and I] honestly looked at each other and thought... [We need more] time," she explains. "We couldn't think of an ending, which told us something, and so we did the last year and then the ending just emerged."

The hour-long finale — directed and co-written by Hunt — featured Jamie and Paul's daughter, Mabel, reflecting back on her parents in the year 2030 in a film called The Reason I'm Like This. "The episode turned out to be one of the most creative times I've ever had," says Hunt, who next stars opposite Mel Gibson in the romantic comedy What Women Want (opening Dec. 15). "It was like making a little movie."