Los Angeles ? If you’re a co-star of a sitcom, kissing the title character can prove fatal to your series health.

That’s the lesson learned by Terry Farrell, fired from her “Becker” role just after the Monday-night CBS comedy’s season finale aired last month. Her character, diner owner Reggie, finally kissed cranky doctor Becker (Ted Danson) after he showed interest in a lively neighbor (Nancy Travis). It was left a cliffhanger at the time, but Farrell knows the outcome for her, anyway since she won’t even be returning to wrap up that story line.

The firing came “completely” as a surprise, Farrell says. “I’ve been trying to adjust to the shock of it, quite honestly. It’s hard not to take it a little personally, for someone to say, ‘You did a great job, but we don’t need you anymore.'”

Farrell adds, “I was originally told that the very last scene of the very last episode of ‘Becker’ would be Becker and Reggie going on their first date, but that was a long time ago. I learned from doing earlier series that so many things are beyond your control, you shouldn’t waste time thinking or worrying about them. All you can do is to do your best job and hope people like it.”

The notion of pairing Becker and Reggie romantically went through many fits and starts. “The first time I met with Ted,” Farrell recalls, “(the producers’) biggest concern was the chemistry. If you watch the pilot, you’ll see that they wanted to play a romantic tension between the characters.

“Then they got concerned that it would be compared to Sam and Diane on ‘Cheers,’ so they backed way off.”

Farrell claims her dismissal from “Becker” is unrelated to her not showing up along with the other supporting players when work on the series’ fourth season began last summer over a contract dispute. “Thankfully, it had nothing to do with any of that.”