Programs Including The Duffer Brothers' Hit and Yellowjackets Have Become Bloated. I Strongly Prefer the One-and-Done Series
It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The second series of your top TV show drops on your platform, and you're brimming with anticipation. The debut season ended so perfectly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. After the season wrapped, you were perusing Reddit threads with other hardcores to decode subtle references pointing toward upcoming twists.
Unfortunately, the return episode disappoints. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. In episode two, a key performer makes a choice that fans unanimously declare inconsistent. By episode five, the writers appear to have memory loss regarding plot points heavily emphasized earlier. By the lackluster conclusion, you long for an earlier termination.
The Curse of Overextension
Wishing for cancellation can only be retrospective; viewers usually oppose premature cancellations. Take Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody 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.
Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Top-notch cast members (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) depicted the survivors in dual eras. There were multiple award nominations, creators confidently planned five seasons to fully explore the narrative. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. This news brought me relief.
Young actors prepare for Stranger Things' next chapter.
Story decisions have weakened the core. In place of exploring post-rescue life, and their coping with awful experiences, the narrative expanded unnecessarily. This involved a wearying pattern of introducing peripheral figures (including the flat character 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 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 embraced predictable tropes. Occasionally, series should end on a high note.
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. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.
The Ideal Model
I preferred Yellowjackets as a limited run, occupying our minds endlessly, unresolved threads included. My top series ever followed this pattern. The classic teen series, the ideal adolescent show, ran for just one year yet felt epic in scale: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, the cinematography was perfectly autumnal, and the dialogue was untethered from the normal “teen speak written by a 35-year-old” trope. The ending left questions unanswered, yet this mirrors real life accurately of never having real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. Following 18 excellent installments (plus one weak one), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to answer some of those questions. It might only live on an old hard drive, it demonstrates television's powerful connection.
The Unique Connection
When producers honor the special viewer-program bond, more shows can end gracefully.
- Priya Elan writes about the arts, music and fashion.
