Column by Shannon Frazer

There’s about a week left in the semester and everyone is excited about something.

Some people can’t wait for the Kentucky Oaks and Derby in Louisville this weekend, others are looking forward to graduating and still others are anxious for an upcoming summer vacation.

But me? What event have I been anticipating for months?

Two words: “Lost” finale. (It’s May 23, by the way.)

Even if you’ve never seen the show, but find the black screen and eerie music that close out each week’s intriguing episode, I recommend you catch an episode or two.

Although, let me preface this: you’d be better off starting at season one, episode one rather than jumping right in because, well, you’ll get lost.

It’s true — “Lost”’s intricacies have confounded more than a few viewers.

Just when you think the next episode will clear things up, it just presents more information, therefore leading to more questions.

Staying true to “Lost” style, the show’s creators have left the direction of the remaining final season episodes wide open so it’s next to impossible to predict what will happen in the coming weeks.

But rather than getting caught up in the points of confusion, I’d like to focus on why I do watch the show and why you should, too.

First off, the series defies genre classification.

Do you like action? It has that. Do you like romance? It has that. What about suspense and mystery? “Lost” has that, too.

“Lost” creators have nailed a storyline appealing to just about any and every audience out there.

Next, the show is chock full of symbolism.

Names, places and even dialogue references weave an intricate web piling layer upon layer of story, meaning re-runs are often the best tools to unearth more underlying meaning.

An example of this intricacy: Is it coincidence the character John Locke shares his name with a prominent seventeenth-century philosopher?

And Rousseau? Another philosopher. What about Desmond’s last name, Hume? Hume was a philosopher, too.

Everything in the seemingly arbitrary world of “Lost” is intentional and there’s no doubt that “Lost” creators want viewers to know that.

Keep in mind I’m only tipping the complexity iceberg here.

Lastly, who doesn’t love time travel? Initially I suspected this story component was a merely a novel afterthought by the writers, a sort of tribute to Back to the Future or something.

Considering a large part of the first two seasons consists of telling each character’s back stories, my first guess was the island time travels and these recent “flash sideways” scenes were a way for the show’s creators to display a sense of continuity (tell the characters’ pasts, watch their presents on the island, then use this time travel element to go to the future).

As this final season has revealed, though, it may be more complex than that. Again, that was probably intentional.

I’m making no predictions as to how the series will end, but I look forward to that final episode when (hopefully) everything will fit together and finally make sense.

Even if “Lost” creators pull a Sopranos move and cut to that daunting black screen with “”Lost”” floating in the middle, at least by that point I’ll know that there is no more story to tell. I guess you could say I can’t wait to get un-lost from “Lost.”