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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. Season two of your top TV show drops on your platform, and you're brimming with anticipation. The debut season ended flawlessly: upcoming stories were hinted at provocatively, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. In the months since the finale, you scoured online forums with other hardcores to uncover hidden hints shedding light on future developments.

But the new season opener falls flat. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. Cut to the second episode, your favorite cast member has done something that fans unanimously declare inconsistent. By episode five, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. And by the disappointing finale, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Curse of Overextension

Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Consider Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody starring Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. But perhaps these fans will rest better with the knowledge the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I currently desire it was a one-season story. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, and every episode hit the right marks. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Excellent actors (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. There were multiple award nominations, creators confidently planned five seasons to fully explore the narrative. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. This news brought me relief.

Young actors prepare for Stranger Things' next chapter.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. Instead of focusing on the survivors' reintegration, and their coping with awful experiences, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. 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 disappointing, and as a viewer, it is depressing to see your favorite show morph slowly into a hate-watch.

A Common Phenomenon

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Programs including Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and fallen headfirst into expected or comfortable cliches. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

Actually, benefits come from self-contained series. Looking at Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, TV creators know when to stop when the story has naturally reached an endpoint. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Hopefully, Adolescence’s producers have thought twice about that rumoured season two.

The Perfect Example

I wish Yellowjackets could have been a one-and-done series, residing permanently in our thoughts, mysteries intact. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. This beloved 90s drama, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, lasted for only one season yet felt epic in scale: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. The ending left questions unanswered, but that is perfectly in keeping with the reality of youth queries staying forever open. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to resolve lingering mysteries. Though stored on outdated technology, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

The Special Relationship

If writers recall the sacred audience-series connection, more series can conclude appropriately.

• The author writes about the arts, music and fashion.