An alternative option could be a micro-USB Y-cable, where you can connect the drive to the TV, but also connect an external power supply (like a phone or tablet charger style unit) to the cable to give additional power. That may be slightly risky as you will also be feeding power in towards the TV USB port, but it could be an option if required. And again there’s no guarantee of things working.
For your specific questions:
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Same comments apply as before - the voltage drop is dependent upon the cable length, whether it’s one cable or multiple ones joined together. You may well get additional voltage drop on two cables due to the losses in the male/female connection, but you will still potentially get a larger drop if it’s a single longer cable than the one supplied (hence why WD don’t recommend using either longer cables or hubs with their external drives as it’s not guaranteed).
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You can use USB2.0 cables too, as they too can connect to the USB3.0 port on the drive (it just connects to the larger side of the port, leaving the smaller section unconnected). If your TV port is USB3.0 though, you will get a lower data transfer rate though of course if you use a USB2.0 cable to connect your drive to the TV (if your TV port is also USB2.0 then it shouldn’t make much difference which cable you use, as you’ve already got the USB2.0 limitation from the TV hardware).
Indeed if you have a longer USB2.0 cable available, it could be a way to do a quick and simple test as to whether things will work or not without purchasing anything new.
