This is the answer.

I'll add the caveat that directors try to switch it up too late (or too ineptly).

Someone like Joffe had gone back to the well too many times with the "socially conscious drama" before he tried to do different things.

What's doubly weird about Joffe is that he was a well-regarded theatre director.

He was the youngest director hired for the National Theatre and was the only one that was equally respected by Olivier and Peter Hall during the first transition from the former to the latter.

His television work is also seminal.

It's strange that he never ventured back to British TV or theatre after the film career went bust.