Why Arrow Just Got Cancelled
4. It Had A Five Season Plan
Throughout a lot of Arrow's run, we heard about the show having a five-season plan. Season 5 was always the aim, the point to which the cast and crew wanted to reach.
That made a lot of sense, given the nature of the show's flashbacks. Oliver Queen went missing for five years, and the flashbacks were filling in the gaps of what happened each year, which lined up with each season of the show. Ergo, five years, five seasons, and then Oliver's story would be complete. Season 5 actually had a bit of this approach to it. For the first time in years, the flashbacks really felt connected to the present storyline, offering up some nice parallels as everything started to come full circle.
The Season 5 finale went back to Lian Yu, and then blew it up entirely. If Arrow had wanted to go out after Season 5, then it could hardly have chosen a more fitting way to do so: Oliver Queen saving his son, and the island being destroyed, could've made for a very fitting end point, to the extent you could almost imagine they'd planned it as such.
Except, of course, they hadn't. The show returned for Season 6, which dipped slightly in quality, and is now halfway through its seventh season, which again hasn't managed to top Season 5. It's not bad by any means, but Arrow has already stayed on the air longer than anyone had ever imagined it would. It'd be unwise to outstay that welcome much further.