Why TV adaptations never usually work...

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I generally don't like TV. British TV is more dour than a wet seal in a tar pit, and is usually just crap anyway. The only things I watch on TV are Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons, and of course the occasional film, even though they always show the good ones at the most awkward times. For example, Robert Altman's Nashville was on at the ridiculous time of 1:40 AM not long ago. Of course that's not always the case, but I'm detracting from the point. Films based on TV shows are almost always ways for people to shamelessly cash in on a successful TV show. They're usually tarted up to be "cinematic," even though many episodes of The Simpsons were far more cinematic than that awful cash-cow from a couple of years ago. What was Matt Groening thinking!?! Did he actually have much to do with the movie, or was it written by a bunch of movie-execs and the writers of shit like Family Guy? Because unless Groening has lost a huge amount of imagination and creativity in the space of a few years, he is a genuinly great comedy writer. Just look at the ill-fated cartoon gem Futurama. And it's not only The Simpsons, but other great shows like The X-Files. That movie was dire. As with The Simpsons they took a great TV show, stripped it of imagination and creativity and loaded it with a huge budget and tons of effects to make it more "cinematic." The X-Files was almost Lynchian in parts; it was wonderful on TV. But the movie is a cliched piece of crap about huge government conspiracies and flying hubcaps. The final scene, in which a giant UFO flies over Mulder and Scully is laughable. I mean, just a plain UFO, nothing more or less? How imaginitive of them...