Programs Such As Stranger Things and Yellowjackets Have Become Overstretched. I'm All For the Limited Program
It's an all-too-familiar feeling. The second series of your top TV show has just begun streaming, and you're brimming with anticipation. Season one ended with such precision: future plotlines were teased tantalisingly, and a key figure faced a shocking fate – or did they?. In the months since the finale, you scoured online forums with fellow enthusiasts to decode subtle references illuminating what would happen next.
And then season two’s premiere is a damp squib. The writing appears robotic and uninspired. In episode two, your favorite cast member has done something that viewers recognize as jarringly uncharacteristic. As the story progresses, the writers appear to have memory loss around the storylines aggressively signposted in season one. By the lackluster conclusion, you privately hope it had ended sooner.
The Curse of Prolonged Runs
Regretting a show's continuation is hindsight; audiences frequently rally against early axings. Take Kaos, an amusing Greek myth parody with Jeff Goldblum, axed by Netflix because of weak audience numbers. Yet audiences can console themselves that the program avoided a disappointing second season.
Looking back at the horror-mystery show Yellowjackets, I prefer it had remained a self-contained narrative. The debut offered a richly imaginative setup, 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. There were multiple award nominations, producers originally mapped out a five-season arc to tell the story in necessary detail. But last week, it was announced that it would end with season four. I felt grateful as a viewer.
Young actors prepare for Stranger Things' next chapter.
The show has made narrative choices that have undermined its heart. Rather than leading with the girls’ return home, and their struggle with traumatic memories, the narrative expanded unnecessarily. This involved a wearying pattern of introducing peripheral figures (like the underdeveloped daughter Callie) with minimal impact on the main narrative. It's aggravating, 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 lack original impact, and embraced predictable tropes. Occasionally, series should end on a high note.
Indeed, pleasures exist in single-season stories. Looking at Sharp Objects, I May Destroy You, and Adolescence, producers recognize appropriate conclusion points. However, the magic fades with series like Big Little Lies, first conceived as self-contained, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. 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, unresolved threads included. The best program I've seen succeeded this way. The classic teen series, the perfect 90s teen dramedy, concluded after a single run but achieved film-like breadth: its characters were difficult and contradictory, the filming captured a fall aesthetic, and the scripts transcended typical youth dialogue. 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. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I was heartbroken and took to writing season two fan fiction myself to address unfinished business. Though stored on outdated technology, it demonstrates television's powerful connection.
The Unique Connection
If writers recall the sacred audience-series connection, more shows can end gracefully.
- This writer writes about the arts, music and fashion.
