🔗 Share this article Series Like Stranger Things and The Survival Drama Are Turning Overstretched. I Strongly Prefer the One-and-Done Program It's an all-too-familiar feeling. Season two of your beloved TV show premieres online, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. Season one ended with such precision: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. During the hiatus, you scoured online forums with fellow enthusiasts to find some Easter egg clues shedding light on future developments. 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, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. And by the disappointing finale, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled. The Downside of Too Many Seasons Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; most fans protest when their favorite shows are canned before they can get off the ground. Consider Kaos, a clever mythological satire starring Jeff Goldblum, which Netflix dropped over poor ratings. But perhaps these fans will rest better with the knowledge the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up. Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Excellent actors (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) depicted the survivors in dual eras. There were multiple award nominations, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to fully explore the narrative. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. And as a fan, I let out a sigh of relief. Gaten Matarazzo, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin and Noah Schnapp in the forthcoming fifth season of Stranger Things. 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 narrative expanded unnecessarily. This involved a wearying pattern 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 watching a beloved program become tedious is sad. A Common Phenomenon Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Series like Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things no longer surprise audiences, and embraced predictable tropes. Occasionally, series should end on a high note. 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, writers understand when narratives find completion. Yet the spell breaks for programs including Big Little Lies, initially a one-season story, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Hopefully, Adolescence’s producers have thought twice about that rumoured season two. The Ideal Model I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, residing permanently in our thoughts, mysteries intact. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. This beloved 90s drama, the ideal adolescent show, lasted for only one season yet felt epic in scale: 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. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, 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 resolve lingering mysteries. It might only live on an old hard drive, it shows how series resonate profoundly. The Unique Connection If TV creators can remember the sacrosanct relationship between viewers and shows, more shows can end gracefully. The author focuses on cultural topics.