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This scenario is painfully common. The follow-up season of your beloved TV show premieres online, and optimism runs high. Season one ended so perfectly: upcoming stories were hinted at provocatively, and a main character had – cliffhanger! – been offed (or had they?). In the months since the finale, you were perusing Reddit threads with dedicated fans to uncover hidden hints pointing toward upcoming twists.

But the new season opener falls flat. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. In episode two, a key performer makes a choice that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. As the story progresses, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. By the lackluster conclusion, you long for an earlier termination.

The Downside of Prolonged Runs

Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Look at Kaos, a clever mythological satire starring Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. However, supporters might find comfort knowing the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The first season boasted an inventive concept, and every episode hit the right marks. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Top-notch cast members (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. There were multiple award nominations, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to fully explore the narrative. But last week, it was announced that it would end with season four. This news brought me relief.

Gaten Matarazzo, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin and Noah Schnapp in the forthcoming fifth season of Stranger Things.

The show has made narrative choices that have undermined its heart. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and watching how they deal with their horrific new secrets, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. A fatiguing tendency emerged of highlighting added personalities (including the flat character Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It's aggravating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

A Common Phenomenon

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things lack original impact, and settled into familiar patterns. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. From Sharp Objects to I May Destroy You to Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. Yet the spell breaks for programs including Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Hopefully, Adolescence’s producers have thought twice about that rumoured season two.

The Ideal Model

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, occupying our minds endlessly, cliffhangers and all. My top series ever followed this pattern. My So-Called Life, the quintessential youth program, concluded after a single run 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, yet this mirrors real life accurately of adolescent uncertainties remaining perpetual. Following 18 excellent installments (plus one weak one), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to answer some of those questions. It might only live on an old hard drive, 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 focuses on cultural topics.