A Town Called Mercy

Camcorder man with a Gatling Gun arm. Kahler-Jex, the one he wants to harm. The Doctor might agree. If it wasn't for Amy. A token episode with little charm.

When the Doctor, Amy and Rory land by accident in the town of Mercy in 1870, they discover a cyborg hunting an alien doctor: another alien doctor. It has the entire town besieged and waits for the other doctor to come out.

The last time the Doctor visited the Old West was in 1966's THE GUNFIGHTERS. That was a straight historical about the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Since then straight historicals, in which the Doctor and companions visit Earth's past and don't fight a lurking alien menace, have been scarce. Still, it is an excuse for Matt Smith to put on a Stetson.

The story is told in a fairly straightforward fashion, typical of westerns, at a slow, foreboding pace -- which gives the viewer time to ask all the right questions and come up with answers about what is really going on before the plot has a chance to twist. It's a little slow for my taste.

The pleasures in this episode, if you choose to look for them, are about the production values: the mobile camera that settles into occasional odd point-of-view shots; the careful costuming and understated performances that force you to pay attention far better than shouting; and even Murray Gold's score. I have not been a great fan of Mr. Gold's work, but he has been showing a bit of range this season. This time he steals a bit from Morricone and marries it with fiddlework for an appropriate score -- although he does pull up his favored chorale work too readily.

This is Toby Whithouse's fourth script for Doctor Who -- mostly he has been busy with his own series, BEING HUMAN. His rhythms of storytelling here are not the typical rhythms of Doctor Who. It seems as if he is trying to operate within the framework of westerns, where little is said and much is already known. Even the plots are limited in number. In sf, particularly Doctor Who, there is a constant stream of exposition. It's an interesting experiment in mixing the two sets of tropes that doesn't quite work. I'm glad they tried it, though.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory head to the wild west, a town called Mercy, where a rogue Cyborg (The Gunslinger) is seemingly terrorising the locals, next victim on it's list is the Doctor.

I like the design of the Gunslinger, looks almost a little bit Freddie Kruger, really well designed.

Moffat is trying his hardest to push the American angle on the episodes. Some of the accents are definitely better then others.

Adrian Scarborough is pretty good, if Carry on Films were still made today, he'd be in them, I like the funny side of him, but he does a good job, I liked his scenes with Amy.

I actually think it's quite a deep and intelligent episode. I liked the flip in it, it's not one you'd watch regularly, but it's pretty good. It's one the older viewers would appreciate more then the younger viewers, they'd be bored.

After two adventures set in the depths of space, Doctor Who comes down to Earth for a historically set adventure, which takes The Doctor to the wild wild west. While on route to Mexico for the Dead of the Day Festival, The Doctor and his companions land in a strange American Frontier town held under siege by a cyborg, The Gunslinger (Andrew Brooke), wanting the alien doctor.

Previous seasons of Doctor Who have had an interlinking, underlining theme/threat, something the series is building up to. The seventh series so far has felt more like a collection of standalone adventures and "A Town Called Mercy" has continued this thread. As a standalone episode, it's fun enough since it takes a humorous approach with the material and theme of the episode.

The biggest strength of this episode is the moral dilemmas along with the themes of guilt, forgiveness, and redemption... even though the writing is very much on the nose. There are big blurs of grey instead of a being a clear line between good & evil. It's easy to sympathise with both the Gunslinger, a creature who had been wronged with a mission of revenge and unwilling to hurt innocent, and Kahler Jex (Adrian Scarborough) who's a character who has done bad things in his past, but has ended up being useful and offered a social good to the town. The conflict and relationship between the two is similar to V and Dr. Surridge from V for Vendetta, one being the creator of the other for an evil cause, but the creator ended up becoming a good guy. That was despite the writer's best efforts to try and make Jex unlikable with his actions.

The episode embraces the western setting and clichés, particularly in the later half as The Doctor becomes the town's marshal or when the Gunslinger demands for Jex and a showdown at high noon. There is also very a Saturday morning cartoon feel to it plotting and action wise.

Previous Doctor Who episodes set in the past have been about some sort of secret alien invasion or aliens hiding in human society. "A Town Called Mercy" fortunately dispenses with this tried premise and just runs with a fun sci-fi Western premise and has no pretence of doing an investigation to find the aliens, they are there right at the beginning and in the foreground.

There is an acknowledge in the episode of previous events in the Doctor Who canon, but this is when The Doctor acts the most out of character, such as being overly angry and aiming a gun at Jex. The Doctor would never use physical force or firearms; what would make Jex so special to break this rule? Especially when The Doctor has faced much worse in the past. "A Town Called Mercy" is at times goofy, but Doctor Who is like that some times. This is simply a light hearted, entertaining little episode with a few flaws.

7.5/10 Please visit www.playeraffinity.com

But not brilliant or ever very good either, just good. It has the feel of the more older style Doctor Who's (a little like last weeks but better) where i's more about the journey than the ending. While most people found this too slow for their liking and too boring, I found it okay

Yes I think it's good to see these older style episodes every now and then (perhaps once a season, twice max) but I wouldn't want to see these sorts of episodes too often as it isn't entertaining in the modern sense.