One thing the series did that the movies hardly did was to bring everyone back.
I mean, it seems that we'd have never seen Hyp, Nod, Mutt, Ali, the Old One, Doc, Mr. Thicknose, Tippy, Mo, Guido, etc otherwise as the movies tend to never develop the characters other than the main ones and their families.
Indeed, as far as I can safely say, no guest charaacter (that isn't a family member like Tria, Bron, and maybe Shorty (if he comes in) (He's an adopted brother, rememer?)), have ever been developed much (intermvoie speaking, not intramovie), other than Chomper.
Both movies he waas in were a hit. Indeed, I personally think that Univesal, knowing they were in trouble with movie 13 and that the movie series was getting a bit weaker with 11 and on, decided to bring him in to try and turn things around and that they hoped, with Chomper in the TV Series, they could change the fall in popularity of the series.
Indeed, they brought in other past characters, as mentioned above, giving them repeats finally too.
I really hope the Universal does kepe up that trend, perhaps showing Ali in movie 14 as well or something.
If they keep haviing too many one shot-characters, the franchise won't make it. The standalone episode things have to go.
(Another plus with Chomper, as movie 5 was one of the few that majorly required seeing another one, in this case 2. The ony exception to that is 12, which requires 11 to know about Tria. And, I think, you'd need to see 10 to figure outt 14.)
Though the TV series episodes were mainly standalone too, at least they referenced the movies, including things like the tinysauruses and Pterano.
The standalone episode trend, while good for those who haven't seen all the movies, is more of a detriment in the end than an aide to the LBT saga and if Universal started to do away with that trend, they'd gain traction again.