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It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The follow-up season of your top TV show drops on your platform, and you're brimming with anticipation. The initial run ended with such precision: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. After the season wrapped, you were perusing Reddit threads with dedicated fans to find some Easter egg clues pointing toward upcoming twists.

But the new season opener falls flat. It seems as if the creative team was swapped for algorithms. By the next installment, a beloved actor's character acts in a way that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. As the story progresses, it becomes obvious the creators forgot around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you silently wish that the show had just been cancelled.

The Pitfall of Too Many Seasons

Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Consider Kaos, a delightfully satirical take on Greek mythology with Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. But perhaps these fans will rest better with the knowledge their enjoyment of the series won’t have been muddied by a sophomore slump.

Looking back at the horror-mystery show Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Top-notch cast members (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) depicted the survivors in dual eras. Several prize nominations followed, 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. 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.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. Instead of focusing on the survivors' reintegration, and their struggle with traumatic memories, the narrative expanded unnecessarily. A fatiguing tendency emerged of introducing peripheral figures (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It’s frustrating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

A Common Phenomenon

However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things lack original impact, and embraced predictable tropes. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Actually, benefits come from self-contained 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, originally a limited series, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Hopefully, Adolescence’s producers have thought twice about that rumoured season two.

The Ideal Model

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, occupying our minds endlessly, mysteries intact. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. This beloved 90s drama, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, concluded after a single run but was cinematic in its scope: its characters were difficult and contradictory, the cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the scripts transcended typical youth dialogue. The ending left questions unanswered, 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 great episodes (and one mediocre), 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 Special Relationship

If writers recall the sacred audience-series connection, more programmes can bow out when the time is right.

• This writer covers entertainment and style.