J.J. Abrams can’t get away from Lost. Even as speculation runs rampant about a new Mission Impossible movie and he’s being hailed as the saviour of the Star Trek franchise, the questions asked most often are about the secrets and mysteries of the plane crash survivors and the truth behind the equally mysterious island. With the long awaited final season of Lost set to premiere in February, Abrams, during a whirlwind promotional tour for the Star Trek DVD, took time to address the future as well as the past of Lost with Total Sci-Fi’s Marc Shapiro.

Is this going to be one of those dialogues where you can talk but you can’t say too much?

Yes. That’s pretty much the case. But I’m going to give you the illusion that I’m saying a lot.

So how exciting is it for you to be going into the final season of Lost?

It’s very exciting. We feel like we’ve been Christmas shopping for five years, accruing all these presents and locking them away in a closet. Now there’s the feeling of ‘Does the audience already have one of these and did we get the right sizes?’ Or even worse, are they even going to like it? So now it’s time to open up the closet and begin unwrapping the presents.

Okay, so what are you able to say about the final season of Lost?

We’ve spent the last five years answering the question “Were you guys making it up all along or do you really know what you’re doing?” It’s a great comfort to know that in six months people will stop asking that question. They’ll either say that “You were making it up as you went along!” or “Wow, you really had a plan!”

Is it safe to say this is really going to be the end and that loyal followers aren’t going to be frustrated with the ending?

There will not be a cut to black. It is not all in the dog’s brain. We’re not leaving things open for a Lost movie. We are conclusively ending this story that we started. It would have been easy to ask for a seventh or eighth season because people are still watching the show. But the whole reason that we asked for this end date was so that we could just end it with no back doors.

Will any of the actors who were written out of the show for various reasons return during the final season?

Ian might be back. Dominic might be back. I don’t mean to dodge the question but there’s just so much speculation on who might or might not return that I would hate to put anybody on the spot. I do think it’s safe to say that the final season of the show is shaping up as a final curtain call for all the actors who gave such iconic performances.

Will there be any new characters?

There will be a couple of new faces but we really want to keep the focus on the original characters who helped maintain the reality of the Lost world.

One of the ongoing theories is that the invisible creature is actually a dinosaur. Any truth in that?

I think it’s safe to say that the theory about the dinosaur will be proven or disproven in the season premiere. If you do not see a dinosaur by the end of that episode, you can safely conclude that the mystery monster is not a dinosaur.

Will there be big fireworks in each episode of the final season?

We only have so much room left in our stomachs for the big bang so we’ll be trying to modulate the show. Viewers will be getting little meals all the way along and then, finally, there will be one big meal. You will probably be getting a little more than you were expecting a little sooner then you were expecting.

Will there be a few Lost mysteries that will remain mysteries forever?

I think there are some mysteries that we are not even aware are mysteries! People ask us questions about things and I’m like, “What are you talking about?” Things like “Who murdered Scott?” I say Ethan murdered him. And they say "Really?" The mysteries that we acknowledge are mysteries that will be answered. But our feeling is that there are mysteries that should never be solved.

Are you satisfied or saddened that the show is coming to an end?

A little bit of both. It’s been a very emotional journey. There’s a feeling of ‘I can’t believe it’s been six years since we shot the pilot’. But it feels right getting to the end of this on our own terms. There will be no Lost movie in three years. At the end of this season Lost is over.

Other genre shows have tried to duplicate the Lost formula since you’ve been on but have failed. Was Lost simply a fluke?

I think so. I don’t know what makes Lost work. I guess it’s character centric. It’s the right blend of genre storytelling and traditional storytelling. It feels fresh and new. We’ve had an incredible cast and we haven’t been afraid to take chances and to paint ourselves into corners.

At the end of the day, people appear to be most anxious to find out what ultimately happens to these characters...

I definitely think that people are looking for a resolution on a character level. They want to know who is going to live and who is going to die. They want to know who is going to end up with who and why these people were brought to the island in the first place. That’s the kind of stuff we are working real hard to answer because, when this is all over, we don’t want people throwing rocks at us.

Can you ever really explain Lost to everybody’s satisfaction?

No and we don’t want to keep explaining what our intention was. After a certain point it really doesn’t matter anymore. The work has spoken for itself but we do want the fans to continue to vigorously debate it. It wouldn’t be Lost if five years from now people were not still arguing about what they wanted it to be.

My guess is that your wife will be glad that Lost is finally ending.

I think part of her will be. I know she’s tired of hearing about Desmond’s and Penny’s time travel conundrum…

Lost Season 6 begins on ABC 2 February 2010.