The Beast in Me is doing that annoying miniseries thing where it comes back for round two

Whether you call it a miniseries or a limited series, the clue is in the name. It’s meant to be a one-and-done.

But it seems that no matter what the original creative intention, miniseries are increasingly coming back for seconds – and usually with diminishing returns.

Today, it was revealed The Beast in Me, that Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys miniseries from the end of 2025 will now get a second season. Even if you were a big fan of the show, that’s not necessarily good news.

Don’t get us wrong. Danes is a marvelous actor, she really is. And the combination of Danes and writer Howard Gordon is fantastic, the two of them worked together over eight seasons of Homeland.

There probably is, even, another decent story for Aggie (Danes) to involve herself with, although we won’t see Rhys, who won an Emmy for his performance in The Beast in Me, back in the universe given that his character (10-month old spoiler alert) carks it in the end.

The series was a ratings success for Netflix, so it’s not surprising that the streamer would want another bite of it, but for a viewer, it’s like being sold a lie.

When a show is framed as a miniseries, your investment in it is different. It’s almost as if we give more of our emotional selves to the story because we know it’s a limited engagement. This is the only shot, and we say a metaphorical goodbye at the end. The loop was complete, catharsis was achieved.

Even if you’re left wanting more, knowing that you’re not going to get it is part of the process. We get to move on.

The backtrack is super annoying.

The Beast in Me is hardly alone in this. The miniseries morphing into an ongoing one is part of modern TV-making. Maybe it’s a face-saving measure, like, let’s call it a limited series so that if it tanks, ratings-wise, then it wasn’t a failure. It wouldn’t be a “cancellation”.

But it’s also this instinct where the credo of corporate demands means that there isn’t the discipline of leaving things well alone, letting them exist in this perfect little bubble.

It’s hard to blame the creatives for this. They work in a precarious profession and people want to work and get paid.

In the case of the Squid Game creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, he was paid peanuts for that first season and Netflix made so, so, so much money off his ideas and execution, you’re not mad about him wanting to see a real paycheque now that he had leverage. Go get yours, Director Hwang.

Were those second and third seasons worth it? Barely. Like, they were fine. There were some interesting expansions on the themes, and some new characters that were well-written and performed. But it never recaptured that phwoar sensation of the original series.

And Squid Game was one of the better outcomes. Look at Big Little Lies. What an amazing show that brought together that cast at a time when movie stars on the small screen was still semi-significant, tapping into resonant themes and just really nailing it.

Season two of BBL? Yeah, nah. Adding Meryl Streep to the cast only made it crowded and it felt like it retread a lot of the same ground. It never justified its existence, and the threatened third season only makes our stomachs hurt. Please don’t.

The same goes for the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers, which is a miracle in itself given that original series was not well received. We love Nicole, obviously, but someone should warn her sophomore chapters.

Kidman was also part of another misbegotten tacked-on second series, Top of the Lake, which is still baffling to this day. Also add to the list: The Flight Attendant, Broadchurch (yeah, you forgot about that, didn’t you, there was even a third), The Night Manager and Wolf Hall.

The only time when it’s worked, to varying degrees, is shifting a miniseries into an anthology, so it continues a thread, whether thematically or narratively, but not contort itself to try and bring back the same characters whose arcs were complete.

The White Lotus did this, although, and this is going to be an unpopular opinion, it really didn’t need Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya again, as have Beef and Fargo.

On the horizon are the now second seasons of miniseries Shogun and Presumed Innocent, as well as probable continuations of Adolescence and The Penguin and a potential follow-up to Mare of Easttown.

Statistically, only one, maybe two of those will actually be justified. The rest should’ve left where it was.