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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. Season two of your beloved TV show drops on your platform, and you're brimming with anticipation. The initial run ended flawlessly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. During the hiatus, you delved into fan discussions with other hardcores to decode subtle references shedding light on future developments.

But the new season opener falls flat. It seems as if the creative team was swapped for algorithms. By the next installment, a key performer makes a choice that fans unanimously declare inconsistent. As the story progresses, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Pitfall of Prolonged Runs

Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Consider Kaos, a clever mythological satire with Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. Yet audiences can console themselves that the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The first season boasted an inventive concept, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Top-notch cast members (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. Several prize nominations followed, creators confidently planned five seasons to develop the plot thoroughly. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. 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. Instead of focusing on the survivors' reintegration, and their coping with awful experiences, the story grew padded and excessive. A fatiguing tendency emerged of introducing peripheral figures (such as Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It's aggravating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

An Increasing Pattern

However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and settled into familiar patterns. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

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

The Perfect Example

I wish Yellowjackets could have been a one-and-done series, occupying our minds endlessly, mysteries intact. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. This beloved 90s drama, the quintessential youth program, lasted for only one season but was cinematic in its scope: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the visuals were beautifully seasonal, and the scripts transcended typical youth dialogue. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, but that is perfectly in keeping with the reality of youth queries staying forever open. Following 18 excellent installments (plus one weak one), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to address unfinished business. It might only live on an old hard drive, it demonstrates television's powerful connection.

The Sacred Bond

When producers honor the special viewer-program bond, more series can conclude appropriately.

• Priya Elan covers entertainment and style.