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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. Season two of your top TV show drops on your platform, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. Season one ended flawlessly: upcoming stories were hinted at provocatively, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. After the season wrapped, you scoured online forums with other hardcores to find some Easter egg clues pointing toward upcoming twists.

But the new season opener falls flat. It feels like the entire writers’ room has been fired and replaced by artificial intelligence. By the next installment, a key performer makes a choice that fans unanimously declare inconsistent. By episode five, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. By the lackluster conclusion, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Curse of Too Many Seasons

Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Consider Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody featuring Jeff Goldblum, which was binned by Netflix due to low viewing figures. However, supporters might find comfort knowing the program avoided a disappointing second season.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, with ten flawless installments. In 1996, a plane carrying an all-girl high school football team crashes in the middle of nowhere. Top-notch cast members (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. There were multiple award nominations, creators confidently planned five seasons to tell the story in necessary detail. 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 struggle with traumatic memories, the story grew padded and excessive. That included the show’s tiring habit of bringing in and focusing on new characters (such as Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It’s frustrating, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

An Increasing Pattern

However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Programs including Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and embraced predictable tropes. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. From Sharp Objects to I May Destroy You to Adolescence, writers understand when narratives find completion. Yet the spell breaks for programs including Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, return repeatedly with declining quality. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.

The Perfect Example

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, occupying our minds endlessly, unresolved threads included. My top series ever followed this pattern. The classic teen series, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, ran for just one year but was cinematic in its scope: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the scripts transcended typical youth dialogue. The ending left questions unanswered, but that is perfectly in keeping with the reality 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. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

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.

• The author covers entertainment and style.