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This scenario is painfully common. The second series of your beloved TV show drops on your platform, and optimism runs high. The debut season ended so perfectly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. After the season wrapped, you scoured online forums with dedicated fans to uncover hidden hints pointing toward upcoming twists.

And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. It feels like the entire writers’ room has been fired and replaced by artificial intelligence. By the next installment, your favorite cast member has done something that you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree is totally out of character. As the story progresses, the writers appear to have memory loss concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. And by the disappointing finale, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Curse of Overextension

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; most fans protest when their favorite shows are canned before they can get off the ground. Take Kaos, a clever mythological satire 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.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and every episode hit the right marks. In 1996, a plane carrying an all-girl high school football team crashes in the middle of nowhere. Skilled performers (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. There were multiple award nominations, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to fully explore the narrative. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. This news brought me relief.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

The show has made narrative choices that have undermined its heart. In place of exploring post-rescue life, 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 (including the flat character Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It’s frustrating, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

An Increasing Pattern

But it’s not only Yellowjackets. Programs including Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and settled into familiar patterns. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Actually, benefits come from self-contained series. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. But the game is over when shows such as Big Little Lies, initially a one-season story, return repeatedly with declining quality. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.

The Supreme Instance

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, residing permanently in our thoughts, cliffhangers and all. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. This beloved 90s drama, the quintessential youth program, ran for just one year but was cinematic in its scope: its characters were difficult and contradictory, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, 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 adolescent uncertainties remaining perpetual. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to resolve lingering mysteries. Though stored on outdated technology, 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.

• This writer writes about the arts, music and fashion.