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Many viewers know this disappointment. Season two of your top TV show has just begun streaming, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. The debut season ended flawlessly: upcoming stories were hinted at provocatively, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. During the hiatus, you delved into fan discussions with dedicated fans to uncover hidden hints shedding light on future developments.

Unfortunately, the return episode disappoints. 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 you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree is totally out of character. By episode five, the writers appear to have memory loss concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. And by the disappointing finale, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Curse of Too Many Seasons

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Consider Kaos, a clever mythological satire with Jeff Goldblum, which was binned by Netflix due to low viewing figures. Yet audiences can console themselves that the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The first season boasted an inventive concept, with ten flawless installments. In 1996, a plane carrying an all-girl high school football team crashes in the middle of nowhere. Skilled performers (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. There were multiple award nominations, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to tell the story in necessary detail. But last week, it was announced that it would end with season four. This news brought me relief.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. In place of exploring post-rescue life, and their coping with awful experiences, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. That included the show’s tiring habit of bringing in and focusing on new characters (such as Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It’s frustrating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

An Increasing Pattern

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Series like Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things lack original impact, and fallen headfirst into expected or comfortable cliches. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. Looking at Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. But the game is over when shows such as Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.

The Ideal Model

I wish Yellowjackets could have been a one-and-done series, living rent-free in our imaginations, unresolved threads included. My top series ever followed this pattern. This beloved 90s drama, the ideal adolescent show, ran for just one year but was cinematic in its scope: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the visuals were beautifully seasonal, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. The conclusion provided no neat resolution, but that is perfectly in keeping with the reality of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to answer some of those questions. Though stored on outdated technology, it demonstrates television's powerful connection.

The Unique Connection

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.