This is just a thought, but I think we don’t really want sequels. We just believe we do.

Film studios used to know this one fact: a sequel will make a certain percentage of whatever the first film got. Whatever that figure was, they knew it and they knew it was less than the original movie but so what? It was as close to a rule, a bankable certainty, as anything could be.

We now know this for a fact: no movie is now made that cannot have a sequel, that probably will have a sequel, that might already be filming the sequel.

We also suspect that no movie will ever be made now that isn’t based on a Marvel comic, but that’s a different concern.

You’ve already thought of The Godfather Part II being better than the first one. You’ve probably thought of The Empire Strikes Back being better than Star Wars. You can take that as being proof that sequels are sometimes superior and that therefore sequels can be a good thing. I’m going to take that as being a very short list.

The thing is, though, that I am not against sequels even as I go to them and even as I suspect that they’re going to be weak. (I do so clearly remember the thrill when The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum were both as good as the first one, The Bourne Identity. But then I saw The Bourne Other One, Thingy, Forgotten Already.)

It’s the same with books I like, it’s certainly the same with television series. I’m there for the long haul and if I’ve liked the characters, I want to see more of them.

Except I don’t think that’s actually true. I don’t think it’s true for me and I don’t think it’s true for you either.

What we really want is the same thing again. I don’t mean a repeat of the plot, we get those all the time, I mean we want exactly the same thing again. We want ourselves to be the same as we were.

We want to open that book or go to that cinema or turn on that new TV show and see it for the first time again. To be taken to that new place with those new people and to experience that great experience again. To be who we were then too.

It can’t happen but we can hanker for it. And if our hankering means we get good sequels as well as the ordinary ones, well, it’s something.