(787) A Town Called Mercy

A Western is another thing that Doctor Who has done in the past that didn’t work out quite well. Yesterdays episode was Dinosaurs and todays is the western which was attempted in 1966’s The Gunfighters. In 1966 they filmed in a TV studio in London, this story was filmed in ‘Mini-Hollywood’ in Spain and its incredible just how much location filming can make a story come alive. I honestly believe that if they could have found the budget to film outside then it would have worked. The western town that was used in Red Dwarf 6 would have helped but sadly we have to wait until this story for a Western story to be done right.

The pre-title scene is shorter than usual running at just over a minute. It pretty much sets the tone of the episode and this is another story from Toby Whithouse and another one that has some interesting characters. The gunslinger is rather good although he does a little bit like Kryten at times. The idea that he is someone seeking revenge is good. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive at Mercy where a psychotic cyborg is watching over the town and the cyborg is after Kahler-Jex. At first Kahler-Jex is seen as an innocent person but quite quickly its revealed that he is infect a bad person. There is a nice moral question in this story and its whether the Doctor sacrifices Jex to save the residents of Mercy. There is a lot of not wanting to give Jex up despite all the bad things he has done so it’s a little surprising when Jex ends up killing himself. It seems like a 180 degree personality turn. It all gets wrapped up neatly at the end because the gunslinger (cyborg) is made the Marshall and looks over the town.

The central performances were good and whilst it still feels slightly odd to have Gillan and Darvill in the story, their presence feels put into the story than it did in Asylum of the Daleks. Smith’s performances continue to be good and his scenes with Jex are very good and the highlights of the episode.

This is a story with a good plot and some good location filming. I thought that despite it being filmed in Spain, it feels like we are in the mid-west. Despite this the story didn’t grab me in the way that I thought it would. It’s certainly not bad but I don’t know if I am not in the mood for today’s episode or what but something hasn’t worked on me in the same way that it did when it was transmitted in September 2012.

Three episodes in and the series is slowly starting to feel like it did in 2010. The dark tone from the previous series has well and truly gone and the humour is starting to get more involved in the stories. Without the silence and River and the heaviness the show is getting its mojo back and its weird to think that there are just two episodes before the Christmas Special. Two more episodes before Jenna Coleman joins the show properly and the Amy and Rory era is coming to an end.