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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. Season two of your favorite TV show drops on your platform, and you're brimming with anticipation. The debut season ended so perfectly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a main character had – cliffhanger! – been offed (or had they?). During the hiatus, you delved into fan discussions with fellow enthusiasts to decode subtle references pointing toward upcoming twists.

Unfortunately, the return episode disappoints. It feels like the entire writers’ room has been fired and replaced by artificial intelligence. In episode two, a key performer makes a choice that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. Halfway through the season, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Curse of Too Many Seasons

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; audiences frequently rally against early axings. 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.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I currently desire it was a one-season story. The first season boasted an inventive concept, and every episode hit the right marks. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Excellent actors (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. Several prize nominations followed, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to fully explore the narrative. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. 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 watching how they deal with their horrific new secrets, the story grew padded and excessive. That included the show’s tiring habit of highlighting added personalities (such as Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) who did nothing for the broader story. It’s frustrating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

An Increasing Pattern

However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Series like Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and fallen headfirst into expected or comfortable cliches. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. From Sharp Objects to I May Destroy You to Adolescence, TV creators know when to stop when the story has naturally reached an endpoint. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, return repeatedly with declining quality. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.

The Perfect Example

I wish Yellowjackets could have been a one-and-done series, residing permanently in our thoughts, unresolved threads included. My top series ever followed this pattern. My So-Called Life, the quintessential youth program, concluded after a single run yet felt epic in scale: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the visuals were beautifully seasonal, and the conversations avoided cliched adolescent writing. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, yet this mirrors real life accurately of youth queries staying forever open. After 18 great episodes (and one mediocre), I mourned its end and drafted follow-up stories to answer some of those questions. Though stored on outdated technology, it shows how series resonate profoundly.

The Sacred Bond

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

• Priya Elan covers entertainment and style.