One of the most anticipated events of San Diego’s Comic-Con for the past several years has been the Lost panel. The series got off to a big start when the producers and cast appeared six years ago and showed the pilot episode to a wildly appreciative crowd. The panel didn’t disappoint this year for what will likely be the last official Lost gathering at Comic-Con.

While they kept many of the secrets of the last episodes under wraps, Lost executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof promised once again that answers to all of the major mysteries would be revealed during season six.

Lindelof said, “We want the show to feel like a loop is closing with this final year. There’s a good chance you’ll be seeing many characters you haven’t seen since the first season.” Cuse added that, in the first season, the characters “were running around the jungle [and] things felt intense and surprising… We have a way that we’re going to be able to do that in the final season too.”

At the event, the two confirmed that both Elizabeth Mitchell’s Juliet and Jeremy Davies’ Daniel Faraday will be returning for the final season of the show.

Ian Somerhalder later confirmed that his long-dead Boone character would also be back. The news came just minutes after Somerhalder had been approached by Cuse about returning. It’s been rumored for awhile that Boone’s sister Shannon (played by Maggie Grace) is also slated to return. In late June, the actress hinted that she was packing her bags for a trip to Hawaii.

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Dominic Monaghan made a surprise appearance at the end of the Lost panel, fueling the speculation that Charlie will make a return appearance as well. Monaghan was already at Comic-Con to promote ABC’s new Flash Forward series.

What isn’t known of course is if the dead characters will have recurring parts or if they’ll just be stopping by for momentary cameos. The characters could return in flashbacks, as so many have before, but this time that seems unlikely. With a timeline reset looking very likely, the characters may actually be alive. Of season six, Lindelof said, “The time travel season is over, the flash forward season is over. We’re going to do something different.”

Several short videos were shown during the course of the panel that reflected an altered reality from what viewers have seen in the past. In one, Hurley (Jorge Garcia) is shown in a Mr. Cluck commercial, as the lucky CEO of the franchise. Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) is profiled on America’s Most Wanted as a fugitive who tried to kill her stepfather but ended up blowing up his assistant instead. And finally, a commercial for Oceanic Airlines touted the fact that the company had never had a plane crash.

At the panel, the executive producers also said that they’ve already written the final scene of the show. They teased that they brought it with them in a locked box. At the end of the panel Josh Holloway broke into the box and Michael Emerson read the papers aloud. Unfortunately, it turned out to be pages from an episode of Heroes.

One piece of news that wasn’t mentioned at the panel is the fact that the sixth season has been extended — just a little. Like season five, the sixth cycle was expected to be made up of 17 episodes. That would bring the final three seasons’ total to 48 installments, as was agreed upon a few years back.

In late June, it was confirmed that an extra hour had been added to season six, bringing the episode count to 18. Based on all of the mysteries that are yet to be resolved, it looks like the cast and crew will need all the screentime they can get.

Image courtesy ABC.