Shows That Should Have Ended
Many shows have an amazing first season that is almost perfection. Some are fortunate enough to get another go at it and can utilize everything from the first season that worked and expand on it, while some don’t get past one season and others do when they really shouldn’t have. There are shows that seem as if they won’t end like Grey’s Anatomy or Supernatural hitting the 10 + season mark.
Often, showrunners don’t get the choice and it is the network that keeps the show on or ends it. There are the rare moments when showrunners call it themselves, most recently Succession (but if you ask us, we strongly believe there should be another season!).
Other shows stay past their welcome so we thought we would look at series that should have ended after one season…
5. Yellowjackets
(2021 - ongoing)
Yellowjackets is the saga of a team of wildly talented high-school-girl soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to savage clans, while also tracking the lives they've attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later, proving that the past is never past and what began out in the wilderness is far from over.
Season 1 was a strong start from the opening showcasing Pit-Girl and the struggles of both the past and present iterations of the Yellowjackets. Each episode utilizes every moment to create the tension accompanied with strong writing and a consistent plot. While season 2 had some strong performances and one or two moments that pushed the show to be something else, it lacked the consistency and strong plot of the first season. Would it have been better as a standalone? Possibly. It depends if the next season can pull it back and make both time periods as interesting as each other.
4. Under The Dome
(2013 -2015 / 3 seasons)
An invisible and mysterious force field descends upon a small actual town of Chester's Mill, Maine, USA, trapping residents inside, cut off from the rest of civilization. The trapped townspeople must discover the secrets and purpose of the "dome" or "sphere" and its origins, while coming to learn more than they ever knew about each other and animals too.
The first season stayed close enough to the source material and had a large ensemble cast and varied characters that created the right tone for the premise. It also included an interesting mystery, but after the first season it goes downhill fast to the point where it is unwatchable. There isn’t any saving grace in the last two seasons, and it should have remained one season.
3. Big Little Lies
(2017 -2019 / 2 seasons)
The apparently perfect lives of upper-class mothers of students at a prestigious elementary school unravel to the point of murder when a single mother moves to their quaint California beach town. Filled with mystery, the lives of the beach town reveal how they are interlinked in a thrilling mystery. It ends almost exactly like the book and that works for this show, but the problems are when it goes to its second season.
Big Little Lies won numerous awards for the limited series category and then HBO announced it would return for a second, adding more acclaimed names such as Meryl Streep. Streep is a great addition, but the series falls flat and should have remained a limited series. The intrigue of Jane Chapman’s arrival in season one can’t be matched in season two, where the plots are messy and repetitive.
2. The Boys
(2019 - current / 5 seasons)
The Boys is a fun and irreverent take on what happens when superheroes – who are as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians and as revered as Gods – abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good. It’s the powerless against the super powerful as The Boys embark on a heroic quest to expose the truth about The Seven, and Vought – the multi-billion-dollar conglomerate that manages these superheroes and covers up all their dirty secrets.
While this may be a controversial addition, The Boys shifted from being a social commentary on celebrity with nuance, cohesive plots, and strong performances to being shocking just for the sake of it, using plot as third priority. Shock and high-pitched noises to accompany Antony Starr’s repetitive performance is overused. There was a clever take in the first season that broke the mold of the typical superhero series that is now a fond memory. Even the ending of the cliffhanger in season 1 would have been a better way to end the series than however they decide to attempt to shock audiences with their season five finale.
1. 13 Reasons Why
(2017 -2020 / 4 seasons)
Follows teenager Clay Jensen, in his quest to uncover the story behind his classmate and crush, Hannah, and her decision to end her life. Through 13 tapes that she recorded, there is more to Hannah’s life than her tragic decision as Clay relives the moments in her recordings to understand what happened to her. It is a difficult story to tell respectfully and safely but it can be argued Netflix managed that with the first season.
The problems come after the first season when the show is lost having utilized all the sourced material in the premier season. Anything respectful or tactfully explored by the first season is wiped out as the showrunners disregard subtly and tact for shock. It is a rare thing to find anyone who liked the following seasons and almost unanimous agreement that it should have remained a limited series.