Doctor Who: A Town Called Mercy

After the spectacular 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship', I couldn't help but be a little disappointed with 'A Town Called Mercy'. It's not that it's bad, in fact it has a lot of things going for it. But I get the feeling that like 'Curse Of The Black Spot', it had potential to be SO MUCH MORE.

This scene came out of nowhere...

I think I should start by praising just how beautiful this episode looks. Being the first proper Doctor Who Western (the only other episode featuring this setting was 'The Gunslingers' in the classic series) it was important for the production team to capture an authentic Wild-West set for the episode and it's clear that their shoot in Spain has paid off in dividends. Not only is it the most exotic location the series has ever ventured out to film but there's not one dark corridor or indoors studio set in sight, the entire episode looks spot on. And composer Murray Gold's music (probably one of the best parts of the show) hit's all those noticeable twangs from classic westerns. So far, Series 7 of DW has probably some of the most diverse stories ever, we've had Dalek's, Dinosaurs and now a Western! I applaud the production team for such an ambitious task, it's amazing they can accomplish all of this on a BBC budget, the show has never looked better.

It's a shame Issac died half-way through, just when I was starting to like him. 

But as for the rest of the episode? Well, it was a bit 'meh' to be honest. The acting is still great (Ben Browder turns in a great performance as Issac) and the character of the Gunslinger was a real highlight (GREAT camera angles) but I think the main problem is that this episode pivots around the alien Kahler Jex, and while there's nothing wrong with Adrian Scarborough's performance, his character goes through SO many changes in such a short amount of time that well, I end up not caring one bit when he (SPOILER ALERT) blows himself up at the end. Granted, the scene when he's talking to the Doctor in his jail-cell is brilliant, but the inclusion of his spirituality (the writer trying to make him more relatable to the audience) contradict's what he said earlier about his experiments being for the greater good. In that scene, he comes off as an arrogant megalomaniac scientist and has a clear malice towards everyone in Mercy. However later when he starts getting all emotional over his religion? Didn't buy it one bit, and it seemed like the writer Toby Whitehouse put it there solely to make the character more complex. Which is great, but it has a stark contrast to what we saw earlier. Also the conflict between the Doctor and Jex felt extremely forced. What was so special about Jex that made the Doctor suddenly snap? And why now? I can understand the Doctor being angry, but completely losing it over this one mad scientist who (by Doctor Who standards) was a mild villain at best! Soloman from 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship' was a reeeal nasty piece of work, so I would understand if the Doctor lost it with him, but Jex? Nah. The fact that his character suddenly went crazy out of nowhere didn't help either. Again, this would be a minor nitpick in any other episode but because a lot of the emotional weight in this episode is trying to make you feel for Jex when he commits suicide, the episode just doesn't hit those marks. It doesn't help that Doctor Who has done this sort of episode in the past and handled a complex moral dilemma MUCH more successfully either.

The Gunslinger was one of the episode's best strengths in my opinion.

Oh and you can add Kahler Jex to the list of people in Doctor Who who are supposed to be alien but actually look EXACTLY like us, save for the odd tattoo around one eye. Very Star Trek. I'm also sick of alien races in Doctor Who being so cliche (apart from the main monsters of course). The whole 'my species fought in an endless, bloody war!' thing is getting really old now. In fact, I'm sick of a villain's race being explained by a single sentence at the end of an episode. They make it short to save on time, but too many villains are being 'simplified' by Doctor Who recently. Even Soloman from 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship' was your stereotypical 'I LIKE MONEY!' bad guy. Better realised villains please. *SIGH* I have one last complaint, and that's Amy & Rory having NOTHING to do in this episode. They didn't need to be there at all, save for Amy's speech in the middle (tone down the heavy music in this part, PLEASE. You're whacking us over the head with sentiment here!), and they're supposed to be leaving in a few episodes time! In fact, none of the episodes have been Amy/Rory centric yet, which I find odd considering this is supposed to be their last bow. I just don't get any sense of things ending here, you know?

So overall we have a rather mixed episode of Doctor Who on our hands, one that has great production values (the cinematography in general is just gorgeous, bravo Saul Metzstein!) a few great action set pieces and a fine performance by all the leads but fails when trying to deal with it's 'complex' moral dilemma. Ultimately I just felt indifferent about it: 6/10.

Why were you in this episode?