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This scenario is painfully common. The follow-up season of your top TV show drops on your platform, and optimism runs high. The initial run ended flawlessly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a main character had – cliffhanger! – been offed (or had they?). During the hiatus, you delved into fan discussions with dedicated fans to uncover hidden hints shedding light on future developments.

And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. It feels like the entire writers’ room has been fired and replaced by artificial intelligence. In episode two, your favorite cast member has done something that fans unanimously declare inconsistent. Halfway through the season, the writers appear to have memory loss around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. And by the disappointing finale, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Pitfall of Too Many Seasons

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Look at Kaos, a clever mythological satire with Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. Yet audiences can console themselves that their enjoyment of the series won’t have been muddied by a sophomore slump.

Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Skilled performers (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. There were multiple award nominations, creators confidently planned 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.

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 (including the flat character Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It’s frustrating, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

A Growing Trend

Yet this issue extends beyond Yellowjackets. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and fallen headfirst into expected or comfortable cliches. At times, programs must stop while successful.

The thing is, there are joys to be had in a limited, “one-and-done” series. From Sharp Objects to I May Destroy You to Adolescence, TV creators know when to stop when the story has naturally reached an endpoint. Yet the spell breaks for programs including Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.

The Perfect Example

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, residing permanently in our thoughts, mysteries intact. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. The classic teen series, the ideal adolescent show, ran for just one year yet felt epic in scale: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the conversations avoided cliched adolescent writing. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, but this reflects truth appropriately of adolescent uncertainties remaining perpetual. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to address unfinished business. It might only live on an old hard drive, but it speaks to how deeply TV shows can chime with us.

The Unique Connection

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

• Priya Elan focuses on cultural topics.