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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The follow-up season of your top TV show drops on your platform, and you're brimming with anticipation. Season one ended so perfectly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. During the hiatus, you delved into fan discussions with fellow enthusiasts to uncover hidden hints shedding light on future developments.

Unfortunately, the return episode disappoints. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. In episode two, a key performer makes a choice that you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree is totally out of character. By episode five, the writers appear to have memory loss regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you long for an earlier termination.

The Curse of Overextension

Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Look at Kaos, a delightfully satirical take on Greek mythology starring 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.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and every episode hit the right marks. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Excellent actors (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. There were multiple award nominations, creators confidently planned 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.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their struggle with traumatic memories, the story grew padded and excessive. That included the show’s tiring habit of introducing peripheral figures (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It’s frustrating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

A Common Phenomenon

However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Series like Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things lack original impact, and settled into familiar patterns. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.

The Ideal Model

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, occupying our minds endlessly, mysteries intact. My top series ever followed this pattern. The classic teen series, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, concluded after a single run but was cinematic in its scope: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. The conclusion provided no neat resolution, but this reflects truth appropriately of youth queries staying forever open. After 18 great episodes (and one mediocre), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to address unfinished business. Though stored on outdated technology, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

The Sacred Bond

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

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