Not everyone gets a happy ending, but when *nobody* gets a happy ending, that's going too far in the opposite direction for me.

I always thought Joss Whedon was out-clevering himself by *never* allowing a happy couple to last. That's just as predictable and uninteresting as everybody living happily ever after.

The tendency to think that "dark" stories are automatically better and more real than happier stories irritates me in fandom, and it doesn't irritate me any less in canon.