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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The follow-up season of your beloved TV show has just begun streaming, and optimism runs high. The debut season ended flawlessly: 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 other hardcores to decode subtle references 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 beloved actor's character acts in a way that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. By episode five, the writers appear to have memory loss around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. By the lackluster conclusion, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Curse of Overextension

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 was binned by Netflix due to low viewing figures. However, supporters might find comfort knowing the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up.

Looking back at the horror-mystery show Yellowjackets, I currently desire it was a one-season story. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, and every episode hit the right marks. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Excellent actors (featuring Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) depicted the survivors in dual eras. Several prize nominations followed, producers originally mapped out a five-season arc to develop the plot thoroughly. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. And as a fan, I let out a sigh of relief.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Story decisions have weakened the core. Instead of focusing on the survivors' reintegration, and watching how they deal with their horrific new secrets, the narrative expanded unnecessarily. 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 disappointing, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

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 settled into familiar patterns. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. From Sharp Objects to I May Destroy You to Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. Yet the spell breaks for programs including Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.

The Perfect Example

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, living rent-free in our imaginations, unresolved threads included. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. My So-Called Life, the quintessential youth program, ran for just one year but achieved film-like breadth: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the visuals were beautifully seasonal, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, yet this mirrors real life accurately 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 resolve lingering mysteries. It might only live on an old hard drive, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

The Special Relationship

When producers honor the special viewer-program bond, more series can conclude appropriately.

• The author writes about the arts, music and fashion.