‘Doctor Who’ Reviews Vol. 7.3: ‘A Town Called Mercy’

The Doctor intends to take Amy and Rory on a trip to Mexico to see the Day of the Dead festival but as expected misses the mark by a couple dozen decades and they wind up in the Old West. Not that this bothers The Doctor one iota, especially when they come across a small town with a ‘keep out’ sign that unusually has electricity about ten years early. Upon entering the town the locals are perturbed by the arrival of an alien doctor, as there’s a cyborg bounty hunter holding the town hostage looking for an alien doctor. Turns out there’s already one in town and, hoping to save the towns people, The Doctor concocts a plan to get them all to safety.

So far so standard issue adventuring through space and time when The Doctor finds the ship belonging to the other alien doctor, Jex, he discovers that the cyborg gunslinger may not be the villain that he appears. Jex and The Doctor find themselves at the centre of an ethical dilemma that will divide the town, his companions and offer no easy solution.
What looked to be another Western/sci-fi romp turns into a much more interesting characters study and a complex narrative based around a difficult moral choice. Building on the unexpected event in the previous episode (where the Doctor left an evil man to die) by showing the Doctor pushed to act in a very un-Doctor like manner, possibly a result of the craziness that seems to take the Doctor when he’s been traveling alone for too long. It’s a dark turn that makes it a more engaging episode than the average.

At this point the Western setting may sound incidental, but on top of everything else the episode manages to do successfully it produces a decent looking Western. Drawing on the hot and dusty cinematic style of Sergio Leone there’s plenty for fans of the genre to enjoy here. From the stereotyped residents to the detailed town of Mercy it’s a convincing recreation of the genre and seeing the 11th Doctor gleefully ordering a cup of tea in the saloon is worth a rewatch.
The finale of the episode is action packed and satisfying. We get to see The Doctor in a noon showdown with a cyborg cowboy and a solid end to an engaging story. So far this season is proving to be plenty of that special brand of fun only the Doctor can deliver.