The TV movie, to me, finds itself in a fascinating place in the fandom.

I feel like up until watching the film, I had only really known it by a somewhat infamous reputation. People get so up in arms over the half-human thing they tend to downplay the movie's strengths, so I was pretty surprised to find the movie not that bad of an experience.

Paul McGann and Eric Roberts are both excellent as the Doctor and Master respectively. Their success in Big Finish I think nicely reflects that the two were well cast, even if maybe they weren't well used. While the Master himself was done well, his alien snake CGI effects do not hold up to the effects of time. There's a lot of stuff in the movie like that, much of which feels predictive of the New Who series (like romantic tension between Doctor and Companion along with a new TARDIS desktop theme) - yet in equal part just as dated.

The Doctor losing his memories and the whole business around his potential humanity are real problems. It would be one thing if these were random bits of the movie but rather they are very integral to the plot and hard to ignore. It's not that something like this couldn't work, it is that it isn't used for any benefit to the story. Nothing is gained by the Doctor being partially human in this story, or, as far as I know, any other, so the whole idea is kind of pointless. This twist also doesn't fit with what we know of the Doctor nor what I find most appealing about the character.

It is very cool how they brought back McCoy, but I think it derails the story in a way that is prohibitive to new fans and not a great idea for a new potential era of Doctor Who. It probably would have been fine on its own, but coupled with the other weird decisions I mentioned in the last paragraph make this a very meandering, unfocused story.

It's neat seeing a more "Americanized" production but I definitely think that works as a one-off curiosity more than a long-term choice for a TV series as was planned as a possibility with the movie. In some ways, I am glad things worked out the way they did, but I do feel remorseful this is all we got of a gorgeous TARDIS set with a lot of potential to it and some real value in the production that had been lacking in the 1980s. So, yeah, all things considered, the movie is definitely worth watching at least once for Doctor Who fans and yeah, I didn't have a bad time with it.