🔗 Share this article

This scenario is painfully common. The follow-up season of your beloved TV show has just begun streaming, and you're brimming with anticipation. Season one ended so perfectly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a protagonist met a mysterious end – or so it seemed. During the hiatus, you scoured online forums with fellow enthusiasts to uncover hidden hints illuminating what would happen next.

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, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. By the lackluster conclusion, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Curse of Prolonged Runs

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Take Kaos, a clever mythological satire starring 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 currently desire it was a one-season story. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, with ten flawless installments. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Top-notch cast members (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. Numerous awards recognition occurred, creators confidently planned five seasons to tell the story in necessary detail. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. This news brought me relief.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Story decisions have weakened the core. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and watching how they deal with their horrific new secrets, the narrative expanded unnecessarily. A fatiguing tendency emerged of highlighting added personalities (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It’s frustrating, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

A Growing Trend

But it’s not only Yellowjackets. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things no longer surprise audiences, and embraced predictable tropes. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

Actually, benefits come from self-contained series. Looking at 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, initially a one-season story, return repeatedly with declining quality. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.

The Supreme Instance

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, living rent-free in our imaginations, mysteries intact. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. My So-Called Life, the ideal adolescent show, lasted for only one season but was cinematic in its scope: its characters were difficult and contradictory, the cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the conversations avoided cliched adolescent writing. The conclusion provided no neat resolution, yet this mirrors real life accurately of youth queries staying forever open. After 18 great episodes (and one mediocre), 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, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

The Sacred Bond

If writers recall the sacred audience-series connection, more shows can end gracefully.

• Priya Elan focuses on cultural topics.