Oh, Lost , aren't there some of us who will always - at least to some degree - believe that the island really, truly, was purgatory? It's been ten years since the world was first introduced to creator J.J. Abrams' expansive new vision for television, and the team behind what many deem to be a series that did indeed "alter the landscape" reunited to share memories and say once and for all - again - that the Oceanic survivors were not dead the whole time. Or were they?

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Not Purgatory:

But, In The End It WAS About Death...Right?

They Wrote An Outrigger Explanation:

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There Was Garlic Marinated Sister Kissing:

Weirdest Fan Theory Goes To...:

I kid, they supposedly weren't.Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were joined by cast members Josh Holloway, "James ‘Sawyer’ Ford”, Yunjin Kim, "Sun Kwon”, Jorge Garcia, "Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes”, Ian Somerhalder, "Boone Carlyle”, Maggie Grace, “Shannon Rutherford”, Henry Ian Cusick, "Desmond Hume”, and Malcolm David Kelley, “Walt Lloyd” at last night's PaleyFest Lost 10 Year Anniversary panel to discuss the fandoms lingering questions. The most crucial of which was, of course, the end."They were not dead the whole time," Cuse said, likely hoping to close the debate on the matter conclusively."At the end of the series finale, an ABC exec thought it would be good to have a buffer between when you have the end of the show and commercial," the producer went on to explain. "It would be pretty jarring to go to a Clorox commercial after that ending." The team had some images of the plane on the beach that they'd taken before it was removed between seasons 1 and 2. "We thought, let's put those shots at the end of the show and it will be a little buffer and lull. And when people saw the footage of the plane with no survivors, it exacerbated the problem.""These were real people, they were really on the island, and these things really were happening to them," Lindelof stressed, eschewing the notion that the passengers of flight 815 had in fact died in the crash and were spending their time on the Island reconciling themselves to their respective lives and deaths."Very early on we had decided that even though Lost was a show about people on the island, really, that metaphorically, it was about people who were lost and searching for meaning and purpose in their lives," Cuse explained of their decision to conclude the show in the afterlife, after all. "Because of that, we felt the ending really had to be spiritual. We would have long discourses about the nature of the show and we decided it needed to mean something to us and our belief system and the characters and how all of us are here to lift each other up in our lives.""One of the ongoing conversations with the audience was the perception that the island was purgatory," Lindelof added. "We were always saying, 'It's not purgatory, we're not going to Sixth Sense you.' We felt show had to become sort of meta and so the writers said, 'Obviously, there are all these mysteries. But what if we answered a mystery that was never asked, and we decided that would be: What's the meaning of life and what happens when you die?"When the panel opened up to fan questions, one gentleman took the opportunity to ask about one of Lost's lingering story threads: Who was shooting at Sawyer on the outrigger during that brief flash-forward in time in the fifth season?"I have to give you some level of satisfaction without answering your question, which is the Lost way," Lindelof said at the start of his reply. The producer went on to explain that the team did write the remainder of that scene and had planned to include it in the final season. Ultimately, it was decided to leave it as an open question. Lindelof laughed, recalling that during the writer's meeting he said that at some Q&A in the future, someone would stand up and ask him to explain who was in the outrigger. "We do know what happened and have that scene," Lindelof assured. Adding, "At some point in the future we'll probably auction if off for a charity."When asked about their favorite moments on set, Somerhalder pipped up with, "I kissed my sister once." The actor went on to tell the tale of a day he was faced with the task of making out with the lovely Maggie Grace, take, after take, after take..."It's rough," he quipped.They'd wrapped the scene when the director called out that there was a technical issue, saying that they'd need one more. The actor geared up for, "the best take ever." Little did he know that Grace had slipped off to take in a mouthful of minced garlic, a puff of a cigar, and to strap on an over-sized athletic cup. Chaos and merriment ensued.Jorge Garcia. A fan approached the actor when the show was one the air, relatively early into its run, theorizing that while in the air, the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 were cloned and that the story of Lost was really the story of their clones...So. There's that."It's true," Lindelof said of the survivor clones.Those are some of the tidbits and highlights from the event, but what really made the panel entertaining was the interaction between the producers and the cast, Lindelof's very natural humor (why doesn't he write comedy!?!), and the behind the scenes stories that they shared.

Roth Cornet is an Entertainment Editor for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @RothCornet and IGN at Roth-IGN