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This scenario is painfully common. The second series of your favorite TV show drops on your platform, and optimism runs high. The initial run ended so perfectly: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a protagonist met a mysterious end – or so it seemed. After the season wrapped, you scoured online forums with fellow enthusiasts 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. Cut to the second episode, a beloved actor's character acts in a way that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. As the story progresses, it’s clear that the showrunners have had collective amnesia around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you privately hope it had ended sooner.

The Curse of Too Many Seasons

Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Take Kaos, a delightfully satirical take on Greek mythology 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.

Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I now wish it had been a limited series. Season one had a creatively abundant premise, with ten flawless installments. In 1996, a plane carrying an all-girl high school football team crashes in the middle of nowhere. Excellent actors (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) played the characters across timelines. Several prize nominations followed, creators confidently planned five seasons to tell the story in necessary detail. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. This news brought me relief.

The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.

Plot twists have diluted the essence. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their coping with awful experiences, we were taken in directions that bloated the original premise. That included the show’s tiring habit 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. Programs including Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, and settled into familiar patterns. At times, programs must stop while successful.

Actually, benefits come from self-contained series. 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, initially a one-season story, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.

The Perfect Example

I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, living rent-free in our imaginations, cliffhangers and all. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. My So-Called Life, the ideal adolescent show, lasted for only one season but achieved film-like breadth: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. Its final episode was bitterly unresolved, but this reflects truth appropriately of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. Following 18 excellent installments (plus one weak one), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to address unfinished business. It might only live on an old hard drive, it demonstrates television's powerful connection.

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.