Pilot: The Gathering
This episode was the series pilot. It is available on a DVD twinned with In The Beginning.
The version on the DVD is edited differently from the originally broadcast version. I have a video tape of a re-airing of
The Gathering from CFCF-12, a Montreal Canada subsiduary of CTV, which was broadcast before the series was. The pacing is very different; the DVD version is cut to keep things moving. Previously impressive CGI sequences are cut completely or sharply trimmed.
Perhaps this re-editing was to conceal the distance made in the special effects development, something thrown into sharp relief by the (then) state-of-the-art effects on the flip side of the DVD. The characters who did not make the cut are short-changed; the differences in continuity (story and environmental items) which are to be expected between a pilot and a series being picked up are concealed.
Overall, I personally was disappointed. The item almost feels as if it was thrown together to feed the insatable demand of the marketplace without any real respect for the content. If it wasn't for my dusty VHS cassette of the episode, I might of written off some of the differences to my faulty memory and reflected that some things perhaps are not as good as you originally remember them.