The growing distance between film and television

       Television, with the birth of original, in-depth programming such as Breaking Bad, has been seen as a more artistic and in depth story telling medium than ever before. Content is riskier and freer than what broadcast television could ever offer. Shows can now tell completely inter-connected stories without trying to bring in new viewers week after week. Now, with the internet, viewers can get caught up to date on their own time.
       Some even argue that television is the new place to tell in-depth dramatic stories, and film is becoming a mix of two extremes- low-budget indies, and high-budget popcorn fare. Studios no longer want to take the risk on higher budget dramas, and the public suggests that television is the place to tell them. If Game of Thrones was published ten years earlier, it would likely be a movie series. To many, television is the medium to tell new dramatic stories. It makes sense in a way- you can obviously go so much more in depth by telling a story over twelve hours than in two or three.
       Now, I don't mean to generalize here- there have been some great higher budget dramatic films in the last few years, such as Lincoln, and the superiority of television is a pretty controversial opinion, even though many serious writers now swear by it. People seem to want to write for TV much more than film today, and see it as not only either to get into, but more exciting and free to work for.
       Film, to me at least, is more effective than television because of its brevity. The longest of (commercial) films run about 3 hours. Every frame holds so much power and meaning. Stories must be completely fulfilling within the small time frame, while an episode of a TV show must complete a small arch but is expected to leave many answers that can be picked up on. Sure, some films have sequels, but usually they are unexpected and only leave a few questions.
       Film, I also argue, is most certainly freer. A single 2-hour film can be made much cheaper than a small run of episodes for a television show that will garner serious attention. Film, when made on a small budget or with total freedom, can be much more experimental and adventurous. Television, I believe, will always be narrative. There will likely never be an experimental television show, and Television's modern rebirth simply means telling much more adults plots, like those on The Sopranos and Breaking Bad.
       In a lot of ways, the brevity and smaller scale (which lends to freedom) of film can never be replicated in an episodic television show, at least in its typical format that can be expanded upon for years and years. Mini-series are an entirely different case, like Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, but there could never be a Season two of something as sprawling and unusual as that. As great as something like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, or The Wire, I don't think its even possible to compare it to a two or three hour film. I won't say one is better than another, but simply different, and as a writer and filmmaker myself, I feel more comfortable and free working within a time frame that forces a critical exclusive editing process as intense as a film screenplay and feature film. Obviously, this is just an opinion, but I assert that the two mediums are simply incomparable, and their only shared similarity is that they are watched on the same screen.