🔗 Share this article

It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The follow-up season of your favorite TV show has just begun streaming, and you're brimming with anticipation. The debut season ended so perfectly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a main character had – cliffhanger! – been offed (or had they?). In the months since the finale, you delved into fan discussions with fellow enthusiasts to decode subtle references shedding light on future developments.

But the new season opener falls flat. It seems as if the creative team was swapped for algorithms. By the next installment, your favorite cast member has done something that you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree is totally out of character. By episode five, it becomes obvious the creators forgot around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Downside of Too Many Seasons

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Take Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody featuring Jeff Goldblum, which was binned by Netflix due to low viewing figures. But perhaps these fans will rest better with the knowledge the program avoided a disappointing second season.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I currently desire it was a one-season story. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and every episode hit the right marks. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Top-notch cast members (featuring Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. Several prize nominations followed, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to develop the plot thoroughly. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. I felt grateful as a viewer.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

The show has made narrative choices that have undermined its heart. In place of exploring post-rescue life, and their coping with awful experiences, the story grew padded and excessive. That included the show’s tiring habit of highlighting added personalities (including the flat character Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It's aggravating, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

A Growing Trend

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Series like Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and settled into familiar patterns. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

The thing is, there are joys to be had in a limited, “one-and-done” series. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, TV creators know when to stop when the story has naturally reached an endpoint. But the game is over when shows such as Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Hopefully, Adolescence’s producers have thought twice about that rumoured season two.

The Ideal Model

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, residing permanently in our thoughts, unresolved threads included. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. This beloved 90s drama, the ideal adolescent show, lasted for only one season yet felt epic in scale: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the visuals were beautifully seasonal, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, but that is perfectly in keeping with the reality of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. Following 18 excellent installments (plus one weak one), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to address unfinished business. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, it shows how series resonate profoundly.

The Special Relationship

If TV creators can remember the sacrosanct relationship between viewers and shows, more programmes can bow out when the time is right.

• Priya Elan covers entertainment and style.