I think we’ve really started to see a shift in storytelling in Hollywood over the last several years. For the longest time film was the medium to tell character driven stories and TV was a home for game shows, cartoons, and meaningless entertainment. Now I think they are starting to get that film is more of an event type experience and television can have the spacing for great character development. Taking an hour out of a movie for a flashback on the antagonist doesn’t work but was used very effectively here for a TV show. The series was stronger for it but a movie would have suffered and gotten bogged down.
It’s more important than ever to choose the right medium for the story being told. So many books were done a disservice by being adapted into movies instead of TV mini series or full series. Not everything can be told in 2 hours. But not everything can be stretched into an 8 episode season of television either. The Penguin didn’t need to be a movie to be impactful or meaningful. TV isn’t a lesser medium because it’s not a theater presentation. I so love that we are seeing programming for TV at the same, or sometimes even better, caliber as a film.