The following story contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the third season finale of "Lost."

While it should've been expected, it still pissed off the producers of ABC's "Lost."

Just days before the "game-changing" season finale was expected to air, some Web site somewhere on the Internet had leaked the details of at least two characters, if not more, getting off the island. And because of that, producers of the show will now begin what they told E! Online's Kristin Veitch is called "radio silence."

"I know a lot of people are going to be frustated, but I think if things had gone a little differently in terms of the finale getting spoiled, we might have been a little more open to talking about it," said series executive producer Damon Lindelof. "The reason for the silence is we don't want to tell the audience what to think about where the show is going to be next year. The way the finale concluded and what happens next is open to interpretation. I think it had a real imaginative quality to it that hopefully engaged the audience's imagination the way the show did when they first saw the pilot."

The finale also saw the death of a major character, Dominic Monaghan's former rock star Charlie, who Lindelof said was difficult to kill off, but that after he dumped his heroin addiction, there wasn't much left for him.

"It was just a great storyline, and we were thinking, is there a way for us to have our cake and eat it, too?" Lindelof said of the storyline involving predictions by Ian Cusick's character of Desmund that Charlie was going to die. "Can we continue prophesying Charlie's death but not actually have him die, just have him willing to die? But we kind of got to the point -- I guess it was during the writing of 'The Brig' -- where were all just talking in the writers room and realized it's a cheat if he lives. It wouldn't be fair, because we've made such a big story point out of it that Charlie now has to die. If he is going to accept his death, then he he has to die. Otherwise, it's like, 'Why did we do this story at all?'"

Still, even with the story decision made, it wasn't easy letting go an actor that the producers and cast enjoyed working with, Lindelof said.

"The idea of how would the show feel with Charlie not being in it anymore, that was a very dark tunnel to be looking down and it continues to be," he said. "But I think the reality is, after 72 hours of 'Lost,' we have the idea of communicating to the audience that it's not just the Shannons and Boones and Paulos and Ekos and Ana Lucias who are vulnerable. Everybody is vulnerable. Not everybody's going to make it to the end of this journey. I think that was an important story point to make."

To read more of Kristin's interview with Lindelof, read the entire Q&A by clicking here.