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This scenario is painfully common. Season two of your beloved TV show has just begun streaming, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. The debut season ended so perfectly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a main character had – cliffhanger! – been offed (or had they?). In the months since the finale, you were perusing Reddit threads with fellow enthusiasts to decode subtle references pointing toward upcoming twists.

And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. By the next installment, a beloved actor's character acts in a way that you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree is totally out of character. By episode five, the writers appear to have memory loss regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Pitfall of Too Many Seasons

Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Look at Kaos, a clever mythological satire featuring Jeff Goldblum, which Netflix dropped over poor ratings. Yet audiences can console themselves that their enjoyment of the series won’t have been muddied by a sophomore slump.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I currently desire it was a one-season story. The first season boasted an inventive concept, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Excellent actors (featuring Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. There were multiple award nominations, producers originally mapped out a five-season arc to fully explore the narrative. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. I felt grateful as a viewer.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Story decisions have weakened the core. In place of exploring post-rescue life, and their coping with awful experiences, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. A fatiguing tendency emerged of bringing in and focusing on new characters (such as Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) who did nothing for the broader story. It’s frustrating, 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. Programs including Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things lack original impact, and settled into familiar patterns. At times, programs must stop while successful.

The thing is, there are joys to be had in a limited, “one-and-done” series. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, return repeatedly with declining quality. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.

The Ideal Model

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, residing permanently in our thoughts, mysteries intact. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. This beloved 90s drama, the quintessential youth program, concluded after a single run but achieved film-like breadth: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the conversations avoided cliched adolescent writing. The conclusion provided no neat resolution, yet this mirrors real life accurately of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I mourned its end and drafted follow-up stories to address unfinished business. It might only live on an old hard drive, it shows how series resonate profoundly.

The Special Relationship

If TV creators can remember the sacrosanct relationship between viewers and shows, more programmes can bow out when the time is right.

• The author covers entertainment and style.