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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The follow-up season of your favorite TV show premieres online, and optimism runs high. The debut season ended flawlessly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a main character had – cliffhanger! – been offed (or had they?). In the months since the finale, you delved into fan discussions with other hardcores to decode subtle references illuminating what would happen next.

And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. In episode two, a key performer makes a choice that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. By episode five, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Pitfall of Overextension

Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; most fans protest when their favorite shows are canned before they can get off the ground. Take Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody starring Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. Yet audiences can console themselves that the program avoided a disappointing second season.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and every episode hit the right marks. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Skilled performers (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. There were multiple award nominations, creators confidently planned five seasons to fully explore the narrative. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. This news brought me relief.

Gaten Matarazzo, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin and Noah Schnapp in the forthcoming fifth season of Stranger Things.

Story decisions have weakened the core. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their coping with awful experiences, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. That included the show’s tiring habit of highlighting added personalities (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It's disappointing, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

A Growing Trend

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Shows such as 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.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. From Sharp Objects to I May Destroy You to Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, initially a one-season story, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Hopefully, Adolescence’s producers have thought twice about that rumoured season two.

The Perfect Example

I wish Yellowjackets could have been a one-and-done series, living rent-free in our imaginations, mysteries intact. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. My So-Called Life, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, ran for just one year but achieved film-like breadth: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, 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 adolescent uncertainties remaining perpetual. 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

If TV creators can remember the sacrosanct relationship between viewers and shows, more shows can end gracefully.

• Priya Elan covers entertainment and style.