🔗 Share this article

This scenario is painfully common. The second series of your top TV show has just begun streaming, and optimism runs high. The debut season ended flawlessly: upcoming stories were hinted at provocatively, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. During the hiatus, you were perusing Reddit threads with dedicated fans to decode subtle references illuminating what would happen next.

And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. By the next installment, 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. By the lackluster conclusion, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Curse of Prolonged Runs

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. 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 their enjoyment of the series won’t have been muddied by a sophomore slump.

Looking back at the horror-mystery show Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, and every episode hit the right marks. In 1996, a plane carrying an all-girl high school football team crashes in the middle of nowhere. Excellent actors (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. Numerous awards recognition occurred, creators confidently planned five seasons to develop the plot thoroughly. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. This news brought me relief.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Story decisions have weakened the core. In place of exploring post-rescue life, and their coping with awful experiences, the narrative expanded unnecessarily. A fatiguing tendency emerged of bringing in and focusing on new characters (such as Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It’s frustrating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

A Common Phenomenon

But it’s not only Yellowjackets. Programs including Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things no longer surprise audiences, and fallen headfirst into expected or comfortable cliches. Occasionally, series should end on a high note.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. Yet the spell breaks for programs including Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.

The Supreme Instance

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, occupying our minds endlessly, cliffhangers and all. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. My So-Called Life, the ideal adolescent show, lasted for only one season yet felt epic in scale: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the conversations avoided cliched adolescent writing. The ending left questions unanswered, but this reflects truth appropriately of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. After 18 great episodes (and one mediocre), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to resolve lingering mysteries. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, it shows how series resonate profoundly.

The Sacred Bond

If writers recall the sacred audience-series connection, more programmes can bow out when the time is right.

• This writer writes about the arts, music and fashion.