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This scenario is painfully common. The second series of your favorite TV show has just begun streaming, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. The initial run ended so perfectly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. During the hiatus, you scoured online forums with other hardcores to find some Easter egg clues shedding light on future developments.

And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. It seems as if the creative team was swapped for algorithms. Cut to the second episode, a key performer makes a choice that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. By episode five, it becomes obvious the creators forgot concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. By the lackluster conclusion, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Pitfall of Prolonged Runs

Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Consider Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody featuring 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 now wish it had been a limited series. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Skilled performers (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. Numerous awards recognition occurred, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to tell the story in necessary detail. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. I felt grateful as a viewer.

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

Story decisions have weakened the core. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their coping with awful experiences, the narrative expanded unnecessarily. A fatiguing tendency emerged of introducing peripheral figures (including the flat character Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It’s frustrating, and as a viewer, it is depressing to see your favorite show morph slowly into a hate-watch.

An Increasing Pattern

But it’s not only Yellowjackets. Series like 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.

The thing is, there are joys to be had in a limited, “one-and-done” series. From Sharp Objects to I May Destroy You to Adolescence, TV creators know when to stop when the story has naturally reached an endpoint. But the game is over when shows such as Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.

The Perfect Example

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, residing permanently in our thoughts, cliffhangers and all. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. My So-Called Life, the quintessential youth program, concluded after a single run yet felt epic in scale: its characters were difficult and contradictory, the visuals were beautifully seasonal, and the scripts transcended typical youth dialogue. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, but this reflects truth appropriately of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. Following 18 excellent installments (plus one weak one), I mourned its end and drafted follow-up stories to address unfinished business. It might only live on an old hard drive, it shows how series resonate profoundly.

The Sacred Bond

If writers recall the sacred audience-series connection, more series can conclude appropriately.

• This writer focuses on cultural topics.