MR 087: The Gathering

This one is pretty good too. As a sequel to The Reaping it works quite well, as it does as a standalone story. This one does similar things for Tegan as The Reaping did for Peri. This is Janet Fielding's first time coming back to play Tegan since she left on the show and it works as a fantastic final send off for her. Better than whatever the hell Power of the Doctor was going for.

After Tegan left when it all became a little much for her, she returned to her home in Australia and just kind of settled down to a normal life. She took over her father's feed company and that was that. She's really bitter, though, and it turns out she has a tumor in her brain that's been there for awhile and she doesn't have much longer to live. There's some really good scenes with Tegan at her birthday party and at a bar where she's bitter towards her guests who are just there for her birthday. We even learn that Tegan was in a relationship but she broke it off because she didn't want to tell him about the tumor when it was getting serious.

She is going to a strange pharmaceutical company for help with the tumor. And this is where the sequel aspects come in. The company is run by a strange American: Kathy Chambers. The same one who was Peri's best friend from the last episode. She left part of the Cybermen technology in the attic and so blames herself for the death of Peri's mother and Mrs. Van Gysengham since that tech exploded and killed them. The gut punch ending in The Reaping was to set up this story, it seems. So she fled America to try to make a new start in Australia. Only there's a little more going on then that. For starters she kidnaps her secretary and Tegan at the bar.

The Doctor is just kind of here, suspecting the company to be involved with alien technology and, as is generally the case with the Fifth Doctor, gets passively swept up in the plot. He just ends up at Tegan's birthday while trying to talk to Kathy by accident and there's a lot of awkward conversation. I like these conversations between them. Tegan was never really the adventurous type. She didn't choose to travel with the Doctor. She just sort of wandered into the TARDIS. She was always trying to get home. There's a lot of bitterness towards the Doctor too for all that, but she did eventually end up enjoying it. So there's a lot of mixed feelings.

Like last time, the sci fi plot isn't as strong as the character stuff, but it is still pretty decent. Kathy and her friend James kidnap Tegan and Kathy's secretary Eve. They're planning on creating a system to cure diseases including cancer and Tegan's tumor using the cyber technology that Kathy still has. Indeed, she's kept her brother Nate alive all this time since his back was broken by their Cyberman dad in the last episode. Her ultimate goal is to cure him. Tegan will be the first test subject and Eve, because she's so intelligent, will serve as the basis of their computer system. She dies and then becomes the voice of the system. I think there's supposed to be a link here to The Harvest, but that one wasn't as good so I don't remember it as well.

This leads into the usual Cyberman morals. It's better to die than to live on forever like this. The Doctor gives that whole speech to Kathy, but he gets plugged into the machine himself and has a conversation with the computer system. Tegan rescues him and the Doctor convinces Nate to shut down the whole thing. It could potentially be the beginning of the Cybermen all over again. He says he was there on Mondas when they were created and regrets not stopping it. But honestly Fifth Doctor, these are crocodile tears. You can't say you regret not stopping the rise of the Cybermen when, while you were there, you went on and on about not changing history. You don't even have the luxury of being another Doctor with another personality different to your own. That was you. This you. YOU did that. Anyway.

The story concludes with a lovely final conversation with Tegan and the Doctor where the Doctor wants to help cure Tegan's tumor and bring her with him, but she's good. She's in her middle age now and has moved on. She doesn't want any alien stuff in her head. And that's that. It's a better goodbye than they got in the show where she just kind of ran away. This story works quite well both at wrapping up the plot threads in The Reaping and at giving Tegan a proper goodbye.