Doctor Who : A town called Mercy [spoilers]

[mr friendly guy]

I am giving this a 2.

By rights it should be higher. The obligatory plot twist that the target of the Cyborg has a checkered past (which is pretty obvious), but then what he did was in the context of providing utility by saving his people when he performed experiments to make his cyborg army. One wonders why he didn't use anaesthetic or make power suits instead of cyborgs.

It also had the nice full circle ending where the Cyborg finds a new purpose. However it just did not come together properly.

For example
1. Jeks kills himself in the end which makes all the effort to save him pointless. In fact if the Doctor just kick him out of the town in the first place it would have had the same effect. But we can't let the Doctor make hard moral choices.

2. Amy's cringe inducing speech to the Doctor about how he has travelled alone too long. Its warped that the Doctors needs a human to keep his morals when he has done things more moral than most humans have. And I am not just talking about the usual stuff like saving people from the bad guys. He also did things like providing a desperate civilisation with an energy source (see the classic Tom Baker story the Planet of Evil).

What makes this worse, is when the Doctor takes her advice, Jeks still ends up dead anyway.

This episode just didn't do it for me.

[Ellindsey]

That.. was not a very good episode.

I have to wonder just what the point of the supersoldier project was. They made it sound like those soldiers turned the course of a hopeless war. Except... they're not much better than you could do with a normal soldier carrying equipment. He's got a kind of crap gun for an arm, a kind of crap targeting system, a not terribly useful computer interface, infrared vision, and some kind of invisibility cloak. Except for the invisibility cloak, we could do better with modern-day equipment, and I don't see that the cloak couldn't have just been done with a suit instead of a cyborg system. And if your cyborgs are dying screaming on the operating table, you really might want to invent anesthesia before you try to make any more cyborgs.

Not that I'm not used to Doctor Who not making sense. But this episode just didn't do it for me in terms of plot or characters either.

[Parallax]

Notes as I'm watching the episode...

Ben Bowder's Marshall is well played. Imagine a wild west marshall as a companion, something a bit different.
Nice security software in that ship.
Good SFX with the cyborg's eye readouts though the gun-arm looks dodgy.
The alien Doctor was well acted but that actor is generally very good; just look at the modern remake of Upstairs, Downstairs.
The gag with Susan the horse could have been skipped as it was just Stormageddon repeated.
I actually liked the whole grey morality exploration, often episodes are very black and white but this was murkier. The line "Thank goodness my people weren't relying on you to save them" was well played. A lot of the dialogue between The Doctor and the doctor (heh) is very much an argument The Doctor has in himself.
Some of the background music was too ... jarring(?). The line where Amy says "we have to be better than him" didn't match well with the music happening at the time.
With all those sparking wires about town, I'm surprised that wooden town hasn't burned down yet.
No references to the Doctor's last wild west visit? Where he had to get a sore tooth tended to and was mistaken for Doc Holiday?
Nice gag with the Undertaker repeatedly trying to measure the Doctor up for a coffin. Well timed.

Again, a Cyborg/robot as an enemy and the sonic screwdriver hasn't been pulled out to instantly fry/disable it. Good to see it's near infinite capabilities being down played a bit.
Oh, there it goes. Nevermind. At least it wasn't an instant solution.

I'm not sure of the purpose of the scene with the church congregation/the girl knocking over the books.

Hm. I quite liked that episode. Good stuff.

[Vaporous]

the whole "moral dilemma" was awful for half a dozen reasons. the one that hits me first is that the doctor had it right to begin with. his mercy/ unwillingness to get his hands dirty gets people killed all the damn times. it's the thing that drove everybody nuts about how the utopia/last of the time lords arc was resolved. can't shoot the master, thats immoral, better let billions die in screaming agony and then handwave it away later! and then of course the guy he refused to kill dies anyway in both cases but its okay because it isn't his fault.

[Crazedwraith]

double post. see below

[Crazedwraith]

I see what people are saying about the flaws of this episode. I found it watchable enough.

Easy to see why the Doctor reacted so harshly to Jex. It's sad there's no-one to really call him on his past deeds here. I mean he attempted to commit double genocide to save the entire universe and Jex is saying he wouldn't have the guts to save his people in Jex's place?

Still this comes after an episode where the Doctor did just kill the villian (albeit one who was not ambigious like Jex) so I wonder if its going to become the Doctor's growth for this season or something and They'll tie these points together. Anyone thing it would have been more moral for the Doctor to shoot Jex himself rather than forcing him over the line. I mean you're making the decision to effectively murder him either way.

Now one thing I disliked/wished had been more explored more was, as ever, Rory. He initially sides with the Doctor in throwing Jex out. But... he's a nurse, shouldn't he have a higher respect for life and Jex's healing of the town? On the other hand, he may well be more appalled with Jex's medical experimentation for similar reasons. Either would make sense to me if it was more fully explored. but no we had to go with Amy being super awesome moral companion who knows the doctor so well. And the conflict between Rory and Amy lasted what? One scene. *sigh*

The opening and ending voice over thing, I think is seriously getting over used. I guess it at least it wasn't narrated by River...

Are episodes four/five an Amy and Rory leaving two parter then?

[Blayne]

I liked the contrast, I think Jex's comment struck a cord because Earth regularly gets saved from the Doctor, allowing them to have avoided (mostly) the hard choices Jex's people had to make.

That and the additional layering of "not having the will to get things done", well... Look at how the time war ended, no wonder he got angry.

Ben Bowder was awesome.

[jollyreaper]

I was very impressed with the production values. Not sure where they were shooting but everything felt proper here. Amazed at what they can do with a bigger budget these days.

Aside from that, generally a crap episode. You almost need to toss away all the setting and wozzit details and just ask "Where do we want the Doctor to go, emotionally? What buttons do we want to press, what discoveries do we want to make? What questions do we want the audience to be asking?" And then you make up a story from there.

I liked the idea of a Doctor haunted by a choices he made in a Time War. I liked the idea of a Doctor getting too full of himself, too cocky, but wasn't quite happy with how they executed it.

It's really hard to even describe where they're going with this Doctor. Personality-wise, 9 was really distinct, a bit of gonky mirth mixed with sadness when he doesn't think you're looking. 10 turned the gonky silly up and broke off the knob. 11 really seems to be a continuation of 10. Aside from the actors being different people, obviously, they're written exactly the same. Now the tradition used to be that each Doctor was like a variation on a theme, you never knew quite what sort of man you were going to get but time and trial would eventually see his essential doctor-ness shine through.

So, where are they going with the Smith Doctor? I don't know. Where are they going with the Ponds? I don't know. The uber-plots that should have felt epic and awesome and wonderful kind of fell flat for me. The idea of Rory the Centurion sounds better in the pitch than the execution. I actually like the idea of a love that lasts thousands of years, one part of the couple dedicating his endless existence to keeping his love's tomb safe until she emerges. An enforced chronological gap like that could be emotionally brutal and powerful. He would be such a different person. Think it's bad going off to a war and wondering what your wife will be like five years later? Hell, if only. She'd not be the woman you remember, she'd have five years of experience apart from you. There's distance in two directions. Pond in a box, Rory's two thousand fucking years separated and she is not a day older than when she went in, not a second. And all of that got dropped. That kind of depth is never shown. Rory is still a henpecked little smeg. A character goes through something like that, he's not going to be the same person, not at all.

I predict the rest of the season will remani equally confusing.

[Parallax]

There's a huge difference between 10th and 11th Doctors.
For starters, 11 seems much smarter and cunning whereas 10 was often a dumb-ass.
11 also seems to be using his zaniness as a purposeful cover for what he's really thinking/feeling, there are moments he gets close to 7th Doctor levels of manipulation and ruthlessness which is interesting to see.

[madd0ct0r]

more rory, less amy as moral compass with a megaphone.

otherwise good. speech by doc facing down lynch mob was somewhere between excellent and hamfisted, but certainly memorable.

[Hillary]

speech by doc facing down lynch mob was somewhere between excellent and hamfisted, but certainly memorable.

"Frightened people? Give me a Dalek any day"

There were some nice touches in this one. The alien Doctor was extremely well played and his conversation with the Doctor was very well written and acted. The overall plot was less good and fairly blah imo; the weakest of the three shows this season.

I continue to be impressed with Matt Smith's Doctor, though. We've come a long way from Jesus Doctor. This one is fairly ruthless and devious, with a wonderful energy and madness. This Doctor would not have meekly succumbed to the Master in the way that 10 did.

I can't wait to see how the next two episodes pan out with the exit of the Ponds. They've been very successful companions imo. They are both strong-minded, independent and have at various times been the driving force behind adventures, rather than always being the Doctor's less-capable apendages. The first married couple to travel with the TARDIS - indeed the first couple in a relationship iirc (apart from Ian and Barbara who were a couple in all but name). It added a very different dynamic to the Doctor's relationship with his companions.

A touch act to follow.

[LadyTevar]

I think what made this work so well is the Doctor and the doctor having their little discussion on morality.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I rather liked it as it was a lot more character-driven that most recent stories. As in, the plot advanced by dialogue and characters arguing/discussing rather than "oh wow another random chase scene to move tot he next act." The Doctor and the doctor talking about morality was very well done. Ben Browder as the sheriff/marshall was a lot better than I thought he would be.

Amy as super-moral companion was bad though. Kinda saved by the not knowing how to hold a gun safely part, and Browder's wonderful "Anyone who isnt an American, put your guns down."

[madd0ct0r]

I actually quite enjoyed the Kahl-jex's talk on his religion - great piece of acting.

[Ahriman238]

I didn't really have a problem with the moralizing, as others have pointed out the Doctor is also a basically decent man who's had to do horrible things out of necessity. Nor do I think Jex's death invalidates the point about not giving him up to die.

The cyborg-as-sheriff thing was nearly painfully telegraphed, but I'll let it off the hook some for decent execution.


Hmm... the next episode is apparently called "the Power of Three" and a brief synopsis mentions the Doctor having been just exiled to 20th Century Earth by the Time Lords, working with Unit...

I was fairly certain I'd heard that Pertwee was no longer among the living, but I'll admit I'm curious to see where this is going.

[Broomstick]

Checking in a week late, but I was busy with houseguests and work.

It's a watchable episode, but flawed. I kept feeling it could have been better. There were any number of good scenes but I didn't think they were strung together as well as they could have been.

I have to wonder just what the point of the supersoldier project was. They made it sound like those soldiers turned the course of a hopeless war. Except... they're not much better than you could do with a normal soldier carrying equipment

Jex said that the cyborgs were decommissioned, and Tek got loose. Could me they'd already removed some of his more interesting capabilities. Either that, or he didn't need them to go after Jex. But you really shouldn't make the audience try to figure out work-arounds for the plot.

The gag with Susan the horse could have been skipped as it was just Stormageddon repeated.

Agreed. Totally unnecessary and gratuitous. The later bit where he's talking to the horse while they're out in the desert worked better but then it didn't have that lame gag in it.

I actually liked the whole grey morality exploration, often episodes are very black and white but this was murkier.

While normally I like the difficulty of a grey/gray morality comparison here it just didn't work as well for me as I would have liked. These are big, important questions. Both the Doctor and the doctor have done terrible things in war for what seemed to be very good reasons and both want redemption. The only line that sticks out to me is “Justice doesn't work that way, you don't get to choose how you pay your debts.” (I may not have recalled that 100% correctly). Except... in the end Jex chose self-execution. The Doctor tries to do good, but there's no one left to call him to account. Was the point that some things are so horrific you can't atone for them? That a moral murderer kills himself? Sometimes there are no good answers? What?

No references to the Doctor's last wild west visit? Where he had to get a sore tooth tended to and was mistaken for Doc Holiday?

It's a shame they didn't put that in – one of the things I like about Eleven is the frequent references to past events in the Doctor's life. They missed a good opportunity there.

the whole "moral dilemma" was awful for half a dozen reasons. the one that hits me first is that the doctor had it right to begin with. his mercy/ unwillingness to get his hands dirty gets people killed all the damn times. it's the thing that drove everybody nuts about how the utopia/last of the time lords arc was resolved. can't shoot the master, thats immoral, better let billions die in screaming agony and then handwave it away later!

True. Although with the Master I think it wasn't so much “that's immoral” as “he's the last other member of my species”. I mean, we choose human life over animal life all the time, don't we? It doesn't seem outrageous that the Doctor might tend to value the life of another Time Lord over the life of a human, at least in some circumstances.

and then of course the guy he refused to kill dies anyway in both cases but its okay because it isn't his fault.

I think it would have been much better for Jex to admit to the town he'd done some Bad Things and that he was leaving so they wouldn't suffer due to his past crimes, then left to either run or blow himself up. Missed opportunity there.

America may or may not be the land of second chances, but even if it is, not every second chance works out.

I was very impressed with the production values. Not sure where they were shooting but everything felt proper here.

Almeria, Spain, which was also the location for such classic Westerns as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It arguably looks more Western than the actual American West and looks “right” because so many Westerns were filmed there. It defined the popular idea of what the West looks like.

I liked the idea of a Doctor haunted by a choices he made in a Time War. I liked the idea of a Doctor getting too full of himself, too cocky, but wasn't quite happy with how they executed it.

^ This.

I like the concept, but the execution was flawed. It wasn't a disaster, the episode is watchable, but it could have been better.