Shows Like The Duffer Brothers' Hit and The Survival Drama Are Turning Bloated. I Strongly Prefer the Limited Series

This scenario is painfully common. Season two of your beloved TV show has just begun streaming, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. Season one ended flawlessly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a protagonist met a mysterious end – or so it seemed. After the season wrapped, you were perusing Reddit threads with dedicated fans to find some Easter egg clues 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. Cut to the second episode, your favorite cast member has done something that fans unanimously declare inconsistent. By episode five, the writers appear to have memory loss concerning narrative arcs clearly established previously. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Downside of Overextension

Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Take Kaos, a clever mythological satire starring 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. The first season boasted an inventive concept, with ten flawless installments. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. Skilled performers (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) depicted the survivors in dual eras. Several prize nominations followed, and the showrunners proudly announced there would be five seasons to fully explore the narrative. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. This news brought me relief.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

The show has made narrative choices that have undermined its heart. Instead of focusing on the survivors' reintegration, and watching how they deal with their horrific new secrets, the story grew padded and excessive. This involved a wearying pattern of introducing peripheral figures (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It’s frustrating, and witnessing a great series decline into annoyance is disheartening.

A Common Phenomenon

However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Series like Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things lack original impact, and fallen headfirst into expected or comfortable cliches. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Actually, benefits come from self-contained 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. But the game is over when shows such as 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, living rent-free in our imaginations, mysteries intact. My favorite TV show of all time has played out like that. My So-Called Life, the quintessential youth program, concluded after a single run yet felt epic in scale: its characters were difficult and contradictory, the cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the conversations avoided cliched adolescent writing. The ending left questions unanswered, yet this mirrors real life accurately of adolescent uncertainties remaining perpetual. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to answer some of those questions. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, it demonstrates television's powerful connection.

The Unique Connection

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

• The author focuses on cultural topics.