I wonder if part of the stagnation also has to do with a smaller common pool of knowledge to draw upon... the old series had a bunch of mainstays they went to (Star Wars, Titanic, the horrible 2000 election kerfuffle), but not as much as The Exorcist, there's just-- what can we assume the cast is saavy enough to know enough about to play off of?  I mean, you can probably take any big name movie and turn it into a game (Colin as the girl in the Hunger Games, the Avengers rap, number of words Game Of Thrones, and so on and so on)