Notification panel stuck full screen with white background

I just updated and the notification panel is no longer transparent and will only go full screen when I try to look at it in the drop down. Is there any way to make this a partial drop down with one swipe like it used to be? 

I frequently glance at notifications while watching something but don't want to cover the whole screen so I can't see what I'm looking at underneath. I'm sure there used to be options to at least set the transparency yourself but I can't find that anywhere. 

To be clear I'm talking about the notification panel while the phone is open, NOT the lockscreen notification.