Clipshows were a necessary evil on broadcast shows, especially scifi ones that cost a lot of money. Sometimes the show would have to do a clipshow or a noticeably cheap bottle episode to save up for an expensive episode. Also, in the pre-streaming era, people couldn’t just watch all the episodes in order on demand so an occasional episode summarizing what was going on was actually useful.

On older broadcast shows, sometimes that was just a necessary evil to save the budget up for an expensive episode.

Depending on the kind of show it is contextual, but here’s some.

If it is a tight self contained story that ends…and then more things happen. Stranger Things for example pretty much perfectly ended in season 1. There was a tiny dangling mystery regarding Eleven’s fate. Such things do not need to be a sequel hook, they can simply exist to tantalize and never be expanded on. This is like if Inception 2 was made and it answered the questions about Cobb’s spinning totem; it would utterly miss the point that the story was over and the ending was intentionally ambiguous.

If the actors or voice actors are simply getting too old for the part. Personally I have a good ear for animation’s voice acting. It drives me absolutely crazy when I hear noticeably aged actors reprising role or continuing them as if nothing has changed. Obviously some performers can last longer than others but for example modern Simpsons is unwatchable to me entirely on the basis of the voices. Even if somehow the writing turned around I simply can’t get past the voices. Similarly I could barely sit through The Incredibles 2, which supposedly picks up right as the first movie ends but all the voices are aged 14 years and I can hear it.

I’m not taking advice from an obvious night monster.