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This scenario is painfully common. Season two of your favorite TV show premieres online, and you're brimming with anticipation. The initial run ended so perfectly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a main character had – cliffhanger! – been offed (or had they?). During the hiatus, you scoured online forums with dedicated fans to decode subtle references illuminating what would happen next.

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. By the next installment, a key performer makes a choice that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. By episode five, the writers appear to have memory loss around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you long for an earlier termination.

The Curse of Overextension

Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; 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. Yet audiences can console themselves that their enjoyment of the series won’t have been muddied by a sophomore slump.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, and every episode hit the right marks. In 1996, a plane carrying an all-girl high school football team crashes in the middle of nowhere. Top-notch cast members (featuring 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 develop the plot thoroughly. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. I felt grateful as a viewer.

Gaten Matarazzo, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin and Noah Schnapp in the forthcoming fifth season of Stranger Things.

Story decisions have weakened the core. In place of exploring post-rescue life, and watching how they deal with their horrific new secrets, the story grew padded and excessive. That included the show’s tiring habit of highlighting added personalities (including the flat character Callie) who added little to the overarching plot. It’s frustrating, and watching a beloved program become tedious is sad.

An Increasing Pattern

However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Series like 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. 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 Ideal Model

I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, residing permanently in our thoughts, cliffhangers and all. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. 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 cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the conversations avoided cliched adolescent writing. 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 great episodes (and one mediocre), I mourned its end and drafted follow-up stories to answer some of those questions. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, it shows how series resonate profoundly.

The Unique Connection

If writers recall the sacred audience-series connection, more series can conclude appropriately.

• Priya Elan covers entertainment and style.