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Many viewers know this disappointment. Season two of your top TV show drops on your platform, and you're brimming with anticipation. The debut season ended flawlessly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. After the season wrapped, you scoured online forums with dedicated fans to uncover hidden hints shedding light on future developments.

And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. It seems as if the creative team was swapped for algorithms. In episode two, a key performer makes a choice that you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree is totally out of character. Halfway through the season, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. By the lackluster conclusion, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Downside of Too Many Seasons

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Look at Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody with Jeff Goldblum, which was binned by Netflix due to low viewing figures. Yet audiences can console themselves that their enjoyment of the series won’t have been muddied by a sophomore slump.

Looking back at the horror-mystery show Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, and every episode hit the right marks. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Top-notch cast members (with 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. But last week, it was announced that it would end with season four. I felt grateful as a viewer.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their struggle with traumatic memories, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. A fatiguing tendency emerged of highlighting added personalities (such as Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It's aggravating, and as a viewer, it is depressing to see your favorite show morph slowly into a hate-watch.

A Common Phenomenon

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things no longer surprise audiences, and settled into familiar patterns. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.

Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. Considering Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, TV creators know when to stop when the story has naturally reached an endpoint. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.

The Ideal Model

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, living rent-free in our imaginations, cliffhangers and all. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. This beloved 90s drama, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, lasted for only one season but was cinematic in its scope: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the scripts transcended typical youth dialogue. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, but this reflects truth appropriately of youth queries staying forever open. Following 18 excellent installments (plus one weak one), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to address unfinished business. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

The Sacred Bond

When producers honor the special viewer-program bond, more programmes can bow out when the time is right.

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