Doctor Who Recap: “A Town Called Mercy”

by Sarabeth Pollock:

Doctor Who Recap: “A Town Called Mercy”
Original Air Date (BBC): Saturday September 15, 2012
Series 7 Episode 3

For those of us anticipating the new season of Doctor Who, we knew through the teasers that there would be an episode about dinosaurs on a spaceship and an episode set in the Old West.  Well, the Wild West arrived tonight in “A Town Called Mercy.”  In another tidbit from the Doctor Who panel at San Diego Comic Con, when the producers needed to find a place to film this episode, they turned not to the Western portion of the United States, but to Spain.  Of course, right? (See if you can spot the scene where you can clearly make out tracks left from a car in the dirt)

The episode begins with a woman’s voice narrating the scene while we watch a spaceship crash land.  She talks of a man who could live forever, a man who fell from the stars.  A man runs away from the damaged craft, and it’s clear that he is being chased.  Soon we see the creature chasing him.  He’s mostly human-looking with a glowing eye patch melded into his face.  His arm has been replaced by a weapon, an awful cannon-like thing, and around him he wears a string of ammunition.  “Make peace with your gods,” he tells his prey, the man from the disabled ship.  The frightened man replies that they were once his gods, too, suggesting that these two men are from the same planet.  “Not anymore,” the cyborg replies.  The man wants to know if he’s the last one.  The cyborg pauses before taking aim.  “There’s one more,” he says.  “The Doctor.”

The Doctor, Amy and Rory stand outside of a town straight out of the old west.  The Doctor thoughtfully regards the sign, which looks to have been recently updated.  “Mercy,” he muses.  “Eighty-one residents.”  Amy points to the rocks and wood surrounding the town.  (As they look at the low-lying barrier, the Cyborg watches them from a distance)  As the Doctor moves to step across the threshold to the town, Rory points out that the sign says “keep out.”  The Doctor grins.  He’s always seen that as more of a suggestion, he explains, stepping over the line.  Rather like “dry clean only.”  The townspeople watch them as they walk through the streets.  They immediately notice that there’s something different about this town.  It’s wrong, as noted by the fact that there are electric street lamps lining the street.  That’s about ten years too early, the Doctor comments, so unless someone has been peeking at his Christmas list, something is amiss.

The trio heads into the saloon as several men circle around them.  The Doctor orders tea while chomping on a toothpick.  The locals want to know who he is, and when he says he’s the Doctor, the undertaker immediately starts taking his measurements.  One man asks if he’s an alien, which is all relative, replies the Doctor, but in this case, yes, he is an alien.  The group is removed from the saloon and the Doctor is pushed outside of the border.  The preacher looks up to see the cyborg in the distance, and he starts offering up prayers.  Isaac, the Sheriff, tells “Bowtie” to step back across the line.  Once he’s safe, one of the men pipes up and says that our Doctor identified himself as an alien and a doctor.  It could be him.  Isaac shakes his head, reminding the man that he knows this isn’t the case.  They’re led back into the town.

In the Sheriff’s office, Isaac explains that the Gunslinger appeared about three weeks prior, and then one day the town woke up and discovered the line.  Nothing can come in or out, which means that the town will slowly starve to death when their supplies run out.  The Doctor notices the hole in his Stetson hat (he wears Stetsons now) and doesn’t think the Gunslinger can aim properly; Isaac says he was aiming for the hat.  That said, the Doctor wonders why he was brought back into town.  The townspeople seemed to be frightened, so why was he brought to the Sheriff’s office?  That must mean that the real alien doctor in question is there, too.  And so he is.

From the cell behind them, a man in a suit and a bowler hat rises from the cot.  He introduces himself as Kahler-Jex.  The Doctor recognizes the Kahler as a race that is extraordinarily competent at building things (they could build a ship out of Tupperware).  The ship crashed two years ago.  Since that time he has taken care of the town.  Isaac reflects fondly at the work Jex has done, including saving the town from a cholera outbreak.  He used his ship as a generator to provide electricity and heat to the townspeople.  Isaac fears that the townspeople are too scared of the Gunslinger to think clearly, that they’ll turn him over to the Gunslinger without consideration for all of the things he has done for them.  The Doctor doesn’t seem to think that there will be any issue evacuating the town into the TARDIS.  Amy is surprised by the lack of scheming.  The Doctor tells her that he’s 1200 years old.  He has matured.  He’s going to distract the Gunslinger with a little sleight-of-hand.

The Doctor borrows the preacher’s horse.  In one of the funniest moments of the season so far, the preacher says his horse’s name is Joshua, but the Doctor, who speaks horse, says the horse prefers to be called Susan, and he asks that his owner respect his life choices.  With that, the Doctor rides away.  Isaac and Rory run across the desert in an effort to distract the Gunslinger.  According to the Gunslinger’s visual display, there is an 87% chance of hurting innocent people if he fires at them, so he disengages.  This gives us some insight into the Gunslinger’s motivation.  He could have taken them both out quite easily, but he doesn’t.  This suggests that there is more to all of this.

Amy remains at the Sheriff’s office with Jex.  She asks him if he would like for them to take him home once they’re done.  Jex is reflective.  He has created a fresh start in Mercy, he says.  He has given so much to the Kahler, and now he can devote himself to something even bigger.  Amy senses that Jex is saddened by something.  She drapes a coat over his shoulders, and he surprises her by asking if she’s a mother.  He can see her kindness and her ferocity.  She says that she is, and wonders if he’s a father.  “Yes, in a way,” he responds.

Out in the desert, the Doctor brings Susan to a halt, and while he talks to the horse he inspects the ground around them.  He finds the cable that is supplying power to the town and follows it.  Whenever he rattles the cable, the lights in the town flicker.  He finally locates the Kahler ship, which looks like a giant egg, and upon looking at it he discovers that there isn’t much damage to the ship at all.  Why would Jex, a member of a technologically advanced species, still be in Mercy if his ship isn’t really damaged?

The Gunslinger locates Rory and Isaac and points his weapon at them.  Before he can kill them, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the ship, setting off an alarm that can be heard for miles around.  The Gunslinger hears the alarm and leaves Rory and Isaac, focusing now on the ship.  Back in town, Jex looks out into the distance and remarks that the Doctor isn’t following the plan.  “Welcome to my world,” Amy mutters.  The Doctor disengages the self-destruct mechanism on the ship and accesses Dr. Kahler-Jex’s personal files.  We don’t get to see what the Doctor is watching, but judging from the screaming, Jex is involved with something awful.

As Amy moves to go outside, Jex points a gun at her, apologizing profusely.  “He should have followed the plan,” he says of the Doctor.

The Gunslinger is waiting for the Doctor as he emerges from the Kahler ship.  He could have gone after Jex, he explains to the Doctor, but innocent people would have gotten in the way.  He has until noon the next day to hand Jex over, or he will kill the next person to cross the line.

Jex knows that the Gunslinger won’t harm Amy, so his plan is to use her for protection.  Isaac and Rory return to find the gun pointed at Amy.  Jex tells them that it might be easier for everyone involved if he left.  The Doctor returns in a rage and calls Jex a liar and a murderer.  Jex calls himself a war hero, not a murderer.  The Gunslinger, the Doctor explains to the group, is a cyborg built by Jex who has been programmed to kill.  Though Jex argues that his work brought peace to a planet that had been at war for over nine years, the Doctor reminds him of the countless innocent people he butchered on the operating table while he perfected his creation.  The Gunslinger is on a mission to kill those responsible for his creation.  The Kahler who created him fled and he tracked them down, crashing their ships and executing them.  Jex is the last one, and it isn’t worth the lives of the townspeople to try to keep him alive.

The Doctor grabs Jex and drags him through the town, thrusting him across the border in a rage.  He draws a gun and points it at Jex, keeping him in check.  Remember, the Doctor hates guns.  This is a turning point for him, one that has Amy and Rory particularly concerned.  Rory sees the logic in the Doctor’s plan—hand over Jex, a known murderer, and the town will be saved.  Amy won’t stoop to Jex’s level; he may be a criminal, but they have always protected people.  While the Doctor holds Jex in check, Amy fires a gun into the air.  The Doctor tells her that today he is honoring the victims first.  Since the Doctor has been taking “stupid lessons,” she comments, she reminds the Doctor that this is what happens when he travels too long by himself.  He can’t bring himself to Jex’s level.  They have to be better than he is.  Reason returns to the Doctor’s expression, and he beckons to Jex to cross back over the line.

But the Gunslinger has arrived, and as he moves to shoot Jex, Isaac pushes him out of the line of fire, taking the blast himself.  As he lies there, dying, he tells the Doctor that he must stay in Mercy to protect the town and look after Jex.  They’re both good men, he wheezes, even if they forget that sometimes.  He slips his badge into the Doctor’s hand.  The Doctor turns to face the crowd.  He orders Jex to be returned to his cell for the time being.  Amy regards the Doctor with wide eyes.  “Oh my God, you’re the Marshall,” she exclaims.  The Doctor nods.  “Yeah, and you’re the deputy.”

Later that night, the pastor asks the Doctor to step outside.  He suggests that he wears his gun belt.  Dockery, the kid who followed Isaac around, is waiting to talk to the Doctor.  Dockery wants the Doctor to take a walk and leave the keys on the desk.  When the Doctor gets back, they will have dealt with Jex.  All they need is for the Doctor to turn a blind eye.  The Doctor tells him that this is what Isaac didn’t want to happen, and this is why the Doctor is protecting Jex.  Protecting Jex, Dockery replies, “is what got Isaac dead.”  Tomorrow, the townspeople will die unless they deal with Jex.  The Doctor reminds him that this is what Isaac didn’t want to happen.  He had always been afraid that their fear would lead them to make a mistake.  Dockery pulls his gun and levels it at the Doctor.  The Doctor says that if he’s 18 years old, he has never killed anyone before.  If he shoots, then the cycle will keep repeating itself.  “Violence doesn’t end violence, it extends it,” he says.  The Doctor admits that he doesn’t know if Jex is worth all of this trouble, but he knows that Dockery (and, by extension, the town) is, so Dockery backs down.  As the Doctor walks away, he tells Amy and Rory that he’ll face a Dalek any day after all of this.

The undertaker hands the Doctor a cup of coffee.  He’s certain that the new Marshall will save the town.  If Isaac believed it, then so would he.  (He still takes the Doctor’s measurements, just in case)  The Doctor shoos him away, leaving him alone with Jex.  Jex knows that the townspeople wanted the Doctor to turn a blind eye so that they could hand him over to the Gunslinger.  If the Doctor did that, he’d be considered a hero.  Jex wants the Doctor to know that he hasn’t been left unaffected by what has transpired, and he’s aware of the conflict that the Doctor sees when he looks at Jex as a mad scientist and the doctor who protected the town.  He knows what he did was wrong, so he’s trying to atone for it by helping the people of Mercy.  This sends the Doctor into a rage.  Jex committed these atrocities, he snarls, and that doesn’t mean he gets to choose how he pays his debt.  Justice doesn’t work that way.  Jex tells the Doctor that his people believe that once they die, their souls must travel up a mountain carrying the souls they have killed during their lifetimes.  Can you imagine the weight of his burden, Jex ponders, given the people he killed directly and through his monstrous creations?  And now his friend Isaac has been added to that burden.  “See why I fear death?” he asks.  He knows the Doctor won’t hand him over to the Gunslinger.  We carry our prisons with us, Jex muses.  His prison is his past, while the Doctor’s prison is his morality.  You can see the wheels turning in the Doctor’s head.  He’s plotting.

The following day, the Doctor stands outside the clock tower.  He cracks his neck and tips his Stetson.  It’s 11:55am.  The town is locked inside the church, whispering prayers.  Amy is guarding Jex.  The Gunslinger appears and crosses the line at twelve sharp.  He and the Doctor stand in a faceoff; the Doctor’s fingers hover and twitch over the handle of his gun.  Suddenly they draw, only the Doctor (channeling his inner He-Man) thrusts the sonic screwdriver into the air and sets off a shrill noise that shatters windows and momentarily weakens the Gunslinger’s defenses.  Amy unlocks the cell, letting Jex outside, while Rory and Dockery (sporting markings on their faces that mirror the ones on Jex’s face) take off running.  The Gunslinger’s cyber-eye picks up their facial markings but realizes that they are human.  He disengages his weapon, noting that this is all a trick to confuse him.  The idea is to buy enough time for Jex to escape to his ship.  The Gunslinger walks past the church, and when the little girl inside knocks over a stack of bibles, he bursts through the door.  Jex hesitates, hearing their fearful screams, but the Doctor insists that he can’t save the town if Jex is still there.  Jex makes it to the ship and turns off the safety mechanism.  The Gunslinger sees the fear in the eyes of the townspeople, and he leaves the chapel, seeking out the Doctor, who is also wearing Kahler face paint.

The Doctor tells the Gunslinger that Jex is gone and his ship will be flying over at any moment.  For a moment it looks like the Gunslinger is about to shoot the Doctor, but then suddenly Jex’s voice rings out over the town.  Jex asks the Gunslinger where he came from on Kahler, and then he asks if he will ever return there.  The Gunslinger can’t return home now, being the monster that he is, and he tells Jex that if he escapes, he will find him.  In the background, we hear the computer counting down its self-destruct sequence.  Suddenly the ship blows up.  The Gunslinger’s quest for retribution is over.  “He behaved with honor at the end, maybe more than me,” he notes.  The Doctor tells him that he can return the Gunslinger to the Kahler home world, but the Gunslinger can never return home.  He tells the Doctor that he will go out into the desert and self-destruct, for he has no place in peace.  The Doctor begs to differ, however, pointing out that he can have a hand in protecting the peace in Mercy.

Later that day, the Doctor walks toward the TARDIS telling Amy and Rory that their next adventure can be to see what really happened to the dogs and monkeys that were sent into space in the 1950s.  Amy, however, asks if they can go home.  Their friends will soon wonder why they’re not aging.  They slip inside the TARDIS while the Doctor says goodbye to the people of Mercy.

Later, the little girl from inside the church walks out to the edge of town.  She steps over the perimeter and walks out into the hills.  The Gunslinger stands on a peak, wearing the Marshall badge with a glint of pride in his eye.  The narrator talks about how America is the land of second chances, and the people of Mercy will tell you that they have a special arrangement with an angel who fell from the stars who keeps watch over the town.

With two episodes to go in the fall season of Doctor Who, which in turn means one more episode until the last episode featuring the Ponds, I have to say that while the writing on these past three episodes has been good, I’m a little puzzled at how Moffat and company plan to wrap everything up.  “A Town Called Mercy” featured some great dialogue, and it certainly showed us some insight into what happens to the Doctor when he spends too much time traveling by himself, but we barely heard from Rory at all, and Amy was sprinkled throughout the episode like so much confetti.  I don’t know about you all, but I’d like to see more focus on the Ponds before they leave us in two weeks.  (That said, the next episode does seem to be Pond-centric)

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on tonight’s episode, fellow Whovians. Please leave your comments below, or find me on Twitter.  Until next week, allons-y!

Sarabeth Pollock is a contributor for DarkMedia. She covers True Blood, Doctor Who, Fringe and American Horror Story, as well as the True Blood comics and whatever movies and books happen to catch her fancy.  She’s an avid writer, reader, and pop culture fan, with interest in everything from True Blood to Doctor Who to Anne Rice to Deborah Harkness.  Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at http://sarabethpollock.wordpress.com