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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The second series of your beloved TV show drops on your platform, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. Season one ended flawlessly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. In the months since the finale, you were perusing Reddit threads with other hardcores to find some Easter egg clues shedding light on future developments.

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 you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree is totally out of character. Halfway through the season, the writers appear to have memory loss concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. By the lackluster conclusion, you long for an earlier termination.

The Downside of Prolonged Runs

Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; most fans protest when their favorite shows are canned before they can get off the ground. Take Kaos, a delightfully satirical take on Greek mythology featuring Jeff Goldblum, which was binned by Netflix due to low viewing figures. But perhaps these fans will rest better with the knowledge the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. 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 (featuring Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. Several prize nominations followed, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to tell the story in necessary detail. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. I felt grateful as a viewer.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their coping with awful experiences, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. That included the show’s tiring habit of introducing peripheral figures (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) who did nothing for the broader story. It's disappointing, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

A Growing Trend

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things no longer surprise audiences, and fallen headfirst into expected or comfortable cliches. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

Actually, benefits come from self-contained series. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, writers understand when narratives find completion. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, return repeatedly with declining quality. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.

The Ideal Model

I wish Yellowjackets could have been a one-and-done series, living rent-free in our imaginations, unresolved threads included. My top series ever followed this pattern. This beloved 90s drama, the ideal adolescent show, concluded after a single run but achieved film-like breadth: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, but this reflects truth appropriately of adolescent uncertainties remaining perpetual. After 18 great episodes (and one mediocre), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to answer some of those questions. It might only live on an old hard drive, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

The Special Relationship

When producers honor the special viewer-program bond, more shows can end gracefully.

• The author focuses on cultural topics.