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This scenario is painfully common. The second series of your beloved TV show has just begun streaming, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. The debut season ended with such precision: upcoming stories were hinted at provocatively, and a protagonist met a mysterious end – or so it seemed. After the season wrapped, you scoured online forums with fellow enthusiasts to find some Easter egg clues pointing toward upcoming twists.

Unfortunately, the return episode disappoints. It seems as if the creative team was swapped for algorithms. Cut to the second episode, your favorite cast member has done something that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. Halfway through the season, the writers appear to have memory loss around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. By the lackluster conclusion, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Curse of Prolonged Runs

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Look at Kaos, a delightfully satirical take on Greek mythology starring Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. Yet audiences can console themselves that their enjoyment of the series won’t have been muddied by a sophomore slump.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, with ten flawless installments. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Excellent actors (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. Several prize nominations followed, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to fully explore the narrative. But last week, it was announced that it would end with season four. And as a fan, I let out a sigh of relief.

Young actors prepare for Stranger Things' next chapter.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their struggle with traumatic memories, 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 aggravating, 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. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, TV creators know when to stop when the story has naturally reached an endpoint. Yet the spell breaks for programs including Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Hopefully, Adolescence’s producers have thought twice about that rumoured season two.

The Ideal Model

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, living rent-free in our imaginations, mysteries intact. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. My So-Called Life, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, lasted for only one season yet felt epic in scale: its characters were difficult and contradictory, the cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. The ending left questions unanswered, but this reflects truth appropriately of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. After 18 great episodes (and one mediocre), I mourned its end and drafted follow-up stories to address unfinished business. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, 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.