Widening the aperture on the ingest came first, and the weighting followed from what it exposed. The more connections available, the better the recommender could work across different kinds of connection.
The endpoint TVLens was reading returned no director for Breaking Bad at all. Not few. Zero. Across the whole catalog it produced 13 director rows, and not one of them linked two shows together. After the change: 25 directors on Breaking Bad alone, and more than 3,000 across the catalog.
That matters most for serendipity. A TV show is more nuanced than a movie: more writers, more cameos, more themes running across more hours.
“What to watch next?” is a simple question, and there is a lot to weigh.
For a more in-depth explanation, read this ADR.