Yes, you can watch scenes of a movie, YouTube videos, but the episodes of The Return are stand alone entities, and that's what makes a series a series. We're just used to series being images factory with little cinematic value, and even when it's better than usual they're chained to a classic narrative form: short scenes, A and B and sometimes C stories, cliffhangers because you need to keep going forward (Netflix simply makes it flow so you keep glued to The Thing, even if, originally, you considered yourself too tired to watch anything else.)
Let's remember that Lynch pulled a weird truck to Showtime to get creative control and more episodes. It should not have happened.
A cinematic piece constructed with puzzles/episodes is an artistic form I love. It should not be as rare...
Series are dominating our world, right? And they're better. But let's not prétend that they're catching il with cinéma, which is more often, you know, cinematic. And I love Mad Men, but I wouldn't describe the show as cinema.
Actors are happy, and actors being filmed is, I think, what's saved. That's why they're praising the medium. You have to film them act.
That's a tl;dr but about what...yeah: directors should have creative control!