Series Including The Duffer Brothers' Hit and The Survival Drama Have Become Overstretched. I Advocate For the One-and-Done Program
This scenario is painfully common. The second series of your favorite TV show premieres online, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. The debut season ended so perfectly: narrative threads were dangled enticingly, and a protagonist met a mysterious end – or so it seemed. In the months since the finale, you were perusing Reddit threads with other hardcores to decode subtle references pointing toward upcoming twists.
And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. It seems as if the creative team was swapped for algorithms. In episode two, 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. By the lackluster conclusion, you privately hope it had ended sooner.
The Pitfall of Too Many Seasons
Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; most fans protest when their favorite shows are canned before they can get off the ground. Look at Kaos, a clever mythological satire starring Jeff Goldblum, which Netflix dropped over poor ratings. But perhaps these fans will rest better with the knowledge the show's quality wasn't tarnished by a weak follow-up.
Considering the thriller Yellowjackets, I currently desire it was a one-season story. The first season boasted an inventive concept, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. A 1996 plane crash strands a female soccer team in wilderness. Top-notch cast members (with Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) depicted the survivors in dual eras. There were multiple award nominations, creators confidently planned five seasons to develop the plot thoroughly. However, a season four finale was just confirmed. And as a fan, I let out a sigh of relief.
Young actors prepare for Stranger Things' next chapter.
Plot twists have diluted the essence. In place of exploring post-rescue life, and their struggle with traumatic memories, the story grew padded and excessive. That included the show’s tiring habit of highlighting added personalities (including the flat character Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It's disappointing, 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 have lost the shock of the new, and settled into familiar patterns. Sometimes shows need to quit when they are ahead.
Actually, benefits come from self-contained series. Looking at Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, writers understand when narratives find completion. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, originally a limited series, return repeatedly with declining quality. Maybe Adolescence's creators hesitated about continuing.
The Ideal Model
I desired Yellowjackets as a single-season show, living rent-free in our imaginations, unresolved threads included. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. The classic teen series, the ideal adolescent show, lasted for only one season but was cinematic in its scope: the roles were challenging and multifaceted, 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 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I felt devastated and created my own continuation to resolve lingering mysteries. It might only live on an old hard drive, it shows how series resonate profoundly.
The Sacred Bond
If TV creators can remember the sacrosanct relationship between viewers and shows, more programmes can bow out when the time is right.
- Priya Elan writes about the arts, music and fashion.