Perfection is hard to come by, as the word itself would suggest. Yet precisely because of how difficult it is to achieve, we often seek the perfect when it comes to popular culture. The movie world these days is partly dominated by how well a movie can really measure up based on its score on websites like Metacritic or the ever-present Rotten Tomatoes. This is not a new trend either; further back when Toy Story 3 hit theaters in the summer of 2010, people paid extreme attention to whether or not certain beloved movies could achieve a 100% score on the aggregator site. The dark flip side is when people get mad at critics for daring to go against the grain, even if it seems impossible to believe that someone might not enjoy the latest exploits of the anthropomorphized toy series. A more recent example was when a dead and amiable Hugh Grant mocked a critic, a few years after the publication of the absolutely wonderful Paddington 2, submitting a negative movie review simply to nullify that movie's 100% rating.

Until now, of course, Rotten Tomatoes tabulates reviews of TV shows and other bits of culture that don't live on the big screen. Not that this kind of aggregation is an exact science to begin with, but it's especially challenging with TV reviews—especially those for current series. That's true even of the big-name shows, the ones that were inevitably popular at the time and remain hotly debated decades later, and there's no better example of this than ABC's sci-fi drama Lost. Before JJ Abrams brought both Star Wars and Star Trek to life on the big screen, and before Damon Lindelof infuriated some people online with his interpretation of the Alien saga, there was Lost, in which a colorful a band of plane crash survivors try to escape a mysterious desert island while also trying to uncover many of its baffling secrets. The six-season series is almost as fragmented now as it was when it ran from 2004 to 2010, and has spawned many copycat shows that combine sci-fi, adventure, romance and other subgenres. And yes, it's true: "Lost" boasts one season with a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, and if you know the show well, it's not the season you think. Season 1, which established the show's dramatic arcs and patterns and won an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series? No. Season 4, which helped re-establish and focus the end of the series? Not exactly. No, according to Rotten tomatoesthe "perfect" season of lost is season 2.

For those who don't know Lost well (or at all), a very brief refresher: By the end of the first season, two halves of the survivors had been established. On one side, there was Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), a doctor with daddy issues who only believed what he could prove with science and facts. On the other hand, there was John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who believed the island had an enigmatic purpose for its survivors, mainly because when the plane crashed, he was inexplicably cured of the paralysis that kept him in a wheelchair. Locke was desperate to dig a strange opening buried in the jungle, while Jack just wanted to get home and bring as many people with him as possible. Season 1 ended with the two unwittingly teaming up to detonate an explosive to open the hatch, and with them looking down a long tunnel.

Season 2 technically started to answer some of the questions that the audience asked, but in doing so it only created many, many, a lot more questions. Yes, the hatch was opened ... to reveal a man inside (Desmond Hume, played by Henry Ian Cusick) who entered a set of numbers into an old-fashioned computer every 108 minutes because he believed it would save the world. The main set of survivors also learned that the tail section of the plane was not destroyed, but landed elsewhere on the huge island, and those who survived the crash suffered much more trauma. Some new characters were introduced, such as LAPD officer Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), dentist Bernard (presumed dead Sam Anderson), the quiet but intense Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the ringleader known as the Others, who initially appears to be called Henry Gale (Michael Emerson).

In short, a lot works takes place in the second season of Lost. And while some of that stuff is memorable for good reason — the slow-burn scenes with Locke and "Henry Gale" are among the show's most poignant and effective to date — a lot of it is frustrating, maddening, and boring. So, to get back to the point of this article: This Is season one of Lost a perfect score? This one? Now, to be fair, this fan of the show wouldn't point to the worst episode as it aired in the second season of Lost. (No, it would "Stranger in a Strange Land" an episode so bad that it inspired the showrunners to basically explain to ABC that if they didn't get a set end date, the quality of the show would be so bad that they would have to keep connecting the characters and the audience beforehand. revealing its mysteries.) Not every Lost fan would say that season two was its lowest point, but the fact that this one got 100 percent is kind of astounding.

Of course, context is important when looking at numbers and reviews like these. First of all, there are only 17 reviews on the site for the second season of Lost. When you compare that to the movies released around the same time, it's easy to see that the series had far fewer reviews to garner, making it technically easier for the show to achieve a perfect score. (And fun fact: The show's second season has the fewest reviews on the website, compared to the other five seasons.) Second, reviewing a TV series is very different from reviewing a movie. When you review a movie, it's just one story. However, for TV, a review can cover an entire season or a single episode. Mind you, if you even look at the quotes from the 17 reviews, it seems safe to assume that more than a few of them are specifically reviewing the (admittedly excellent) season premiere of Man of Science, Man of Faith. Would those same critics argue that the season as a whole is as effective as the same episode? It's hard to know for sure, but for this writer, while certain episodes and scenes are incredible, the season as a whole is among the weakest.

It's a testament to the power of Lost that people can still debate its meaning all these years later. (No, the survivors weren't in Purgatory the whole timeand no, this is not an invitation to argue that they were.) It is a testament to the success of the show that anyone of its seasons achieved a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. If that kind of rating was easy to achieve, this wouldn't seem like a big deal. (Other seasons' ratings range from 69 to 96 percent, with the final season's lowest rating; that's not surprising as much as it is a shocker and this season's perfect score.) "Lost" was a one-of-a-kind show, blending familiar cultural tropes with memorable ones. characters, wonderful twists and unforgettable images. It was a great show and had many perfect episodes. But the fact that its only perfect rating came with one of its most up-and-down seasons is just a testament to how divisive the show really was.