Shows like Stranger Things and Yellowjackets have become bloated. I support the individual series | Priya Elan
IIt feels very familiar. The second series of your favorite TV show has just started airing, and your mind is full of hopeful anticipation. The first season has ended very Exactly: the futuristic plot lines were interesting and the main character – interesting! -You’ve been fired (or have you been?) In the months since the finale, you’ve been following Reddit threads with other die-hards to find some Easter egg clues that shed light on what’s going to happen next.
Then the season 2 premiere is a damp squib. It’s like the entire writers room has been fired and replaced with artificial intelligence. Skip to episode two, and you’ll find that your favorite cast member did something that both you and Reddit user Fishy2345 agree was completely out of character. By the fifth episode, it’s clear that the showrunners have suffered collective amnesia about the storylines so powerful in the first season. And by the disappointing ending, you silently wish the show had just been cancelled.
The desire to cancel can only be retrospective; Most fans protest when their favorite shows are set before they can go live. Take Kaos, a delightful satire about Greek mythology starring Jeff Goldblum, which was snubbed by Netflix due to low viewing numbers. But perhaps those fans will rest better knowing that their enjoyment of the series won’t be clouded by a sophomore slump.
Looking at the horror-mystery show Yellowjackets, I’m now hoping it’s a limited series. The first season had a creatively abundant premise, and its 10 episodes were perfect for feedback. In 1996, a plane carrying an all-girls high school soccer team crashed in the middle of nowhere. A-list cast members (including Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Sophie Thatcher) portrayed the team then and now. There were many award nominations, and the showrunners proudly announced that there would be nominations Five seasons To tell the story with the necessary details. But last week it was announced that the matter had ended Season four. As a fan, I let out a sigh of relief.
The show made narrative choices that undermined its heart. Instead of leading the girls back home and watching how they deal with their horrific new secrets, we were taken in directions that exaggerated the original premise. This included the show’s tired habit of bringing in new characters and focusing on them (like Shauna’s two-dimensional daughter Callie) that did nothing for the broader story. It’s frustrating, and frustrating as a viewer, to see your favorite show slowly turn into hate-watching.
But it’s not just the yellow vests. Shows like Emily in Paris, House of the Dragon, Squid Game, and Stranger Things have lost the shock of the new, falling headfirst into expected or comfortable clichés. Sometimes shows need to stop when you’re on top.
The thing is, there are joys to be had in a “single” limited series. From Sharp Tools to I May Destroy You to Teenage, TV show creators know when to stop when the story naturally reaches its conclusion. But the game ends when shows like Big Little Lies, which was originally a limited series, come back for more and more with diminishing returns. Hopefully, Adolescent’s producers have thought twice about this rumored second season.
I wish Yellowjackets was a one-man series, living rent-free in our imaginations, suspense and all. My favorite TV show of all time was shown this way. My So-Called Life, a quintessential ’90s teen drama, only ran for one season but was cinematic in its scope: its characters were difficult and contradictory, its cinematography was utterly autumnal, and its dialogue was unconnected with the usual “teen talk written by a 35-year-old” trope. The final episode of the series was bitterly unresolved, but that’s entirely in keeping with the fact that there are no real, definitive answers to the open-ended questions from your teenage years. After 18 perfect episodes (and one dodgy one), I was so sad I started writing season 2 fanfiction myself to answer some of these questions. It may only exist on an old hard drive, but it shows just how deeply TV shows can resonate with us.
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If TV creators could remember the sacred relationship between viewers and shows, more shows could pull the plug when the time is right.