I find it hard to imagine that showrunners would want their show cancelled. And even today on Twitter Adam responded to someone who claimed that the only people who were happy were CSers; Adam responded with “I’ve seen plenty of angry CSers today too.”
But, as usual, I think Adam’s missing the point. If everyone is angry (and there’s a pretty good argument to be made that most everyone is–even the CSers who are sick of being blamed for everything bad that happens, and for having every other subset of fandom angry at them and their character) then you really are doing something wrong and “artistic licence” only goes so far.
Should writers be allowed to tell their story the way they want? Yes, sure. But I’m allowed to say that their story isn’t very good. And right now it’s not, and it hasn’t been for awhile. This season, for me and probably me alone, has been better than anything that came after Neverland but only because of some stellar acting from a charismatic villain and some at least moderately thought provoking musing on topics outside of just plot.
There are a lot of big problems but one of the biggest is that I don’t think the writers even know what their show is. They offer up platitudes about hope, love, family, and happy endings but everything they show is in direct contrast to that. How is Robin (and Neal) dying and leaving behind children about hope, love, family, and happy endings? How is Regina never getting to be reunited with her soul mate about hope? How is rewarding a murderer many times over with a second life for doing an over emphasized good work a message about redemption? The writers don’t actually sit with their broad themes and muse on them. They just put them out there as things that you’re supposed to be getting from their show but never pausing to actually consider if their narrative is an accurate reflection of that. It’s like…as long A and E keep giving their song and dance routine about hope, they believe you won’t notice the rooms on fire and there’s no water in sight.