5 2020s Sci-Fi Shows That Should Have Just Stopped After 1 Season, Including Apple TV’s Best Show

When it comes to sci-fi, this is especially worth pointing out, since the genre allows for all kinds of exciting concepts that can be explored in different ways. Still, some shows might have been better off if they had been planned as one-season stories from the start. Here are 5 sci-fi series of the decade that shouldn’t have gotten another season.

The Mandalorian premiered in late 2019, and things went really well at first. That success carried over into Season 2 a year later, but what about the third batch of episodes? Well, that’s where things start to go wrong. Part of the Star Wars franchise and one of its most popular TV productions, the series follows Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), a bounty hunter hired to capture Grogu, who ends up growing attached to the child and deciding to protect him instead. Simple enough, right? There wasn’t much need to complicate things, since the relationship between the two is what makes us want to keep following their journey as they meet new characters and explore new places. However, as the story goes on, the show seems determined to connect itself to the rest of George Lucas’ saga.

The plot starts paying more attention to Mandalorian politics, the Darksaber, and the rebuilding of Mandalorian society, pushing some of the simplicity that made the show so much fun in the beginning into the background. None of this is necessarily bad, since Season 2 did a pretty good job of continuing the story. But was another season really necessary? Even though it left room for more adventures, the first season of The Mandalorian was already satisfying enough on its own, following a character who learns to take responsibility for someone other than himself. In fact, The Mandalorian and Grogu might have worked even better as a movie if it had followed a more focused TV story with a clear, planned transition to the big screen.

Another show that premiered in late 2019, Russian Doll surprised everyone with just how good its writing was. The story was so well put together that it felt perfectly suited for a single season, especially since it even had a natural ending — but then someone decided there was more to explore. The show follows Nadia (Natasha Lyonne), a woman who keeps dying on the night of her birthday and returning to the same moment, unable to figure out why she’s stuck in this loop. When she meets Alan (Charlie Barnett), who is going through something similar, she realizes that getting out of this situation will take more than just figuring out the rules of the time loop. It’s a clever way to explore both characters’ personal struggles without turning everything into a complicated explanation of time travel.

By the end, the show gives us a conclusion that makes sense for both the story and its figures, so continuing it feels unnecessary, even if there are some good ideas to explore. Season 2 moves away from the death loop in favor of following Nadia as she travels through time and looks into her family’s past. This allows the series to tackle different issues, such as generational trauma, but it also makes it lose some of the identity that made it so interesting. With that, Russian Doll ends up becoming a story with a different structure and different goals. In this case, there just wasn’t a convincing reason to keep it going.

You may have never heard of Raised by Wolves, since it was canceled partly because of its audience numbers. And the show had one of the most amazing sci-fi premises, but it also had a problem: it kept raising new questions before answering the ones it had already introduced. The story begins after a war between religious believers and atheists nearly wipes out humanity, following two androids, Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim), who are sent to a distant planet to raise human children. This idea already opens the door to discussions about AI, religion, and what it means to raise a new generation without repeating the mistakes of the previous one. Mother, for example, was programmed to protect the children, but she’s also capable of extreme violence.

The fact is that Season 1 makes great use of these contradictions, building a world full of strange events that you can try to make sense of as the story unfolds. As for Season 2, it expands the mythology even further, introduces new conflicts, and adds even more layers to an already complicated world. In other words, the show starts losing focus, piling up mysteries as if everything needed to get bigger just to keep audiences interested. That doesn’t mean it has no redeeming qualities, but overall, Raised by Wolves might have been an even better (and perhaps more popular) show if it had been planned as a shorter series. Sometimes, there’s just no need to expand a premise that’s already strong enough on its own.

Severance is extraordinary, and there’s no denying that; it’s no surprise that Season 3 is so anticipated by fans. It’s hard to imagine anyone watching the first season and not wanting to know what the heck is really going on inside Lumon Industries, right? The show starts with a simple question: what if you could completely separate your work memories from your personal ones? That’s what happens to Mark Scout (Adam Scott) and his coworkers, who undergo a procedure that creates two versions of each person. The version that works at Lumon knows nothing about life outside the office, while the version that lives outside has absolutely no memory of what happens at work. It’s an intriguing concept, but take a closer look at the series as a whole, and you’ll find a catch.

The thing is, you get so caught up in all the mysteries that just when it seems like you’re finally getting some answers, there are even more questions waiting around the corner. Season 1 ends on an incredible note, but the more the show reveals about the company, the more new things there are to explain. Maybe Severance was always meant to run for multiple seasons, but did it really need to? Season 2 expands the conspiracy and explores questions left unanswered, but that doesn’t mean all those answers were necessary for the previous season to work. In fact, part of the appeal comes from watching the characters try to make sense of a system that even the audience can barely understand. Of course, leaving every question unanswered would be frustrating, but wrapping up a story and stretching it out indefinitely just because its idea is good are two very different things.

Based on o Blake Crouch’s novel, the author himself has talked about how challenging it was to come up with a Season 2 for Dark Matter, and do you know why? The original story wraps up in a single book. The show follows Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), a physicist who is kidnapped and wakes up in an alternate reality where his life has taken a completely different turn. To get back to his wife and son, he has to travel through alternate versions of the world and deal with other versions of himself, each shaped by choices he could have made. Season 1 works because the multiverse is directly tied to Jason’s regrets and the question of how much our decisions define who we are. So, the story has a clear goal, and the journey leads to an ending that gives meaning to everything that came before.

Then you watch Season 2 (which is currently airing), and can’t help but wonder what else really needed to be told. It allows the series to explore more possibilities within the multiverse, but that’s exactly what makes the continuation questionable, since there will always be another reality, another version of Jason, and another situation that can turn his life upside down. By continuing beyond the book, Dark Matter runs the risk of losing the cohesion of something that already had a clear direction. The show may find some good ideas, but its first season already gave us a complete experience — which might explain why the fan response hasn’t been all that positive with the new episodes. This is a story that works as a limited series, and trying to stretch it out is really just commercial potential.