It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The follow-up season of your favorite TV show premieres online, and your mind is full of hopeful expectation. The initial run ended with such precision: upcoming stories were hinted at provocatively, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. After the season wrapped, you were perusing Reddit threads with fellow enthusiasts to decode subtle references pointing toward upcoming twists.
But the new season opener falls flat. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. By the next installment, your favorite cast member has done something that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. Halfway through the season, the writers appear to have memory loss around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. As the underwhelming ending arrives, you privately hope it had ended sooner.
Wanting a series to end early is often late realization; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Look at Kaos, a delightfully satirical take on Greek mythology starring Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. Yet audiences can console themselves that the program avoided a disappointing second season.
Reflecting on Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The first season boasted an inventive concept, and its 10 episodes were note-perfect. Aircraft disaster leaves a teen girls' team isolated in 1996. 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 fully explore the narrative. Recently, news broke of a season four conclusion. I felt grateful as a viewer.
The Stranger Things cast returns for season five.
Story decisions have weakened the core. Instead of focusing on the survivors' reintegration, and their coping with awful experiences, the story grew padded and excessive. A fatiguing tendency emerged of bringing in and focusing on new characters (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) who did nothing for the broader story. It's disappointing, and as a viewer, it is depressing to see your favorite show morph slowly into a hate-watch.
However, Yellowjackets isn't alone. Shows such as Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game and Stranger Things lack original impact, 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, writers understand when narratives find completion. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, initially a one-season story, extend endlessly with reduced impact. Perhaps Adolescence's team reconsidered a second season.
I wish Yellowjackets could have been a one-and-done series, living rent-free in our imaginations, cliffhangers and all. My top series ever followed this pattern. My So-Called Life, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, concluded after a single run but was cinematic in its scope: the personalities were complex and inconsistent, 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. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I mourned its end and drafted follow-up stories to resolve lingering mysteries. Despite existing on obsolete equipment, it demonstrates television's powerful connection.
If TV creators can remember the sacrosanct relationship between viewers and shows, more shows can end gracefully.
A seasoned journalist with a passion for uncovering stories that matter in the Czech Republic and beyond.
