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Reviews for The Gathering

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Too Much Whining

By:David Layton, Los Angeles, United States
Date:Wednesday 25 October 2006
Rating:   5

In both the Big Finish CDs and the Doctor Who novels, there has been this habit of knocking the Doctor. Either "its all the Doctor's fault," or the Doctor makes everyone around him miserable. Joseph Lidster in The Gathering decides to use both. I am beyond tired and annoyed by story after story in this vein. It is not a new idea and not a particularly smart one to say that everyone the Doctor comes into contact with is miserable. The return of Tegan, even for just a one-off, should have been much better than this. As the third longest-running companion, she deserves better consideration. At the end, she does get a 5-minute speech in which she says how it was all worth it to travel with the Doctor, but that does not make up for 85 minutes of her an everyone else saying how awful the Doctor makes their lives.



A damp squib

By:writingbluebear, jersey
Date:Tuesday 3 April 2007
Rating:   6

After the reaping I was looking for something special and with Tegan coming back was couldn't wait. Although this wasn't a horror of a story it just failed to come together. Tegan had issues but had moved on and you could fell the fall out of her time with the doctor but it was all too sarah jane smith. The plot was patrick troughton it just didn't wow me.



The Return of Tegan

By:Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA
Date:Sunday 24 June 2007
Rating:   7

As I said in my review of The Reaping, I feel that The Gathering does not suffer as much from the problems that exist to a greater degree in that other story. One factor is that although we see a different Tegan in this story, like we see a different Peri in the other, here it's to be expected, because this story takes place in Tegan's future. And extra points for bringing back Tegan! I wasn't a huge fan of Tegan in the original series, but I found Janet Fielding's performance as an older Tegan here to be engaging and enjoyable, and the central attraction of this story. The Gathering gives us another lightweight plot in other respects, but this doesn't seem to matter as much with Tegan in the middle of it. At the end of the story we are given an explanation of the strange enigma from The Reaping, but the bulk of the story just kind of hangs around or jogs in place. A problem with this one is that in the first disc the action is quite disjointed, frequently moving around between different locations and times, and rewinding a few times to restart a sequence from a different person's point of view. On the positive side, the sound design is very nicely done. Overall, the Gathering goes some way toward justifying the time spent listening to The Reaping.



The return of Tegan...ye hee!

By:Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom
Date:Friday 4 April 2008
Rating:   10

Janet Fielding was always a favourite of mine. PlAYING such a feisty air stewardess with a wicked sense of humour but also a great sense of compassion. She isnt and never was just a mouth on legs, she was a great companion. And here is her final and yet triumphant return to the world of Doctor Who. Janet was never an actress who pansied around, always delivering a fine performance even if the stories were rubbish, she always grabbed the bull by the horns and made me like her very much indeed on screen. So here she is notably older and a lot wiser and yet again Janet is exceptional in a fine character piece. I cant believe she never actually in interviews seems to have overly loved doing Doctor Who, but she is so great in the role and she must have liked it a bit to have stayed for over 2 years!

This is very emotional and definitely better than many of the family oriented new series tales. Tegan having a brain tumour is shocking and unexpected too. All those years of time travel have talen their toll on her, but she still keeps on plodding on. Pity she wont be back again in the future. This is a wonderfully crafted story from Joe Lidster yet again. The big finish scene is so brilliant even still.



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