S7E3: A Town Called Mercy (SPOILERS)

This one looks interesting, not sure about the villain though. We shall see!

I'm looking forward to this episode. I love Westerns and I love Doctor Who. Hopefully I won't be disappointed.

I personally preferred the stetson from the previous year, but I guess they've got to keep making new action figures of the Doctor...

Makes me think of Cowboys & Aliens. Not a good thing. We'll see.

Instead of a dinosaur....he rides a horse!

loving it so far. . .very tense and the whole morality questions are very good.

I love the idea behind this one as well. Easily the strongest storyline so far this season... but it just didn't interest me (or thrill me) much, personally. I'm going with 'okay'.

Some people just can't be pleased.

Overall I think it was a good episode, loved the ending, but that horse thing was just wrong.

Invisible Supreme wrote:

that horse thing was just wrong.

Huh?

The episode plays up the Western genre much between than last year's pirate one.

The morality angle was nice, but it felt a little shallow. The "We need to be better than them" speech is a little cliche. I also felt it was a bit hypocritical of Amy to preach to the Doctor about mercy when she left Madame Kovarian to die last season.

Again, the Ponds seem to be sitting it out on the sidelines. For these being their last five episodes, they aren't really doing much. Not that I'm complaining.

(Also, personally, I found it refreshing to see people praying on a television show. Seems like a long time since I've seen that.)

stetsons_are_cool7 wrote:

Again, the Ponds seem to be sitting it out on the sidelines. For these being their last five episodes, they aren't really doing much. Not that I'm complaining.

I am complaining. I wish they had a larger role in these past three episodes, I would have enjoyed them more.

I'm not sure what I'd rate it yet. It looked great, I thought the Gunslinger was a cool visual. The set-up was good. Seeing Ben Browder is always good.

My chief complaint is that some of the dialogue just felt way too "on the nose" without a lot of subtlety. The whole "its bad when you travel alone" thing has been explored before. And Amy saying it point blank felt a bit clumsy. The same with "we're both the same you and I" and a few other story points.

I found this a bit distracting. Rory really could have not been there and nothing would have been affected. I also found the way they confused the Gunslinger to be a TINY bit silly. Is his tracking software really so rudimentary that the symbol on the cheek is it's main reference point? I mean, it has infrared. And we could plainly see that none of the fake people running about looked anything like Jex. I think if Jex had a more generic body shape this would have worked better. But he seemed a bit short and full-looking.

My overall sense was that it was enjoyable, but I'm not sure how it'll play on repeated viewings.

stetsons_are_cool7 wrote:

The morality angle was nice, but it felt a little shallow. The "We need to be better than them" speech is a little cliche. I also felt it was a bit hypocritical of Amy to preach to the Doctor about mercy when she left Madame Kovarian to die last season.

Actually, at the end of that episode, she did feel bad about doing it, so it's not unprecedented.

Completely agree with you, jonwes.

jaredofmo wrote:

Actually, at the end of that episode, she did feel bad about doing it, so it's not unprecedented.

I see your point. But Amy, as a character, does not strike me as being really compassionate. After all, she spends most her time bullying poor Rory.

Maybe it'd feel more natural if Rory was the one who stood up to the Doctor. It'd have at least given him something to do besides running around the desert with the sheriff.

kcooper76 wrote:

stetsons_are_cool7 wrote:

Again, the Ponds seem to be sitting it out on the sidelines. For these being their last five episodes, they aren't really doing much. Not that I'm complaining.

I am complaining. I wish they had a larger role in these past three episodes, I would have enjoyed them more.

As far as I'm concerned, they should have exited stage right after The God Complex - where it was written to be the Williams' send off, right down to the Doctor called Amy by her rightful surname.

Everything afterwards - save perhaps The Wedding of River Song - has been pointless. I don't see why they couldn't have just made these initial episodes Doctor-centric. It's not like the guest stars haven't been Companions in their own right. Heck, it might have made the Egyptian Queen and Big Game Hunter feel less excessive if the Williams family wasn't also hogging the scenery.

I was actually surprised I liked it. Maybe it is my experience with the last time Doctor Who went to the old west! I will watch it again tomorrow to get more ideas, because I am too tired to think now.

I quite liked it. That's 3-for-3 this series so far for me. Quite a switch from the past few years.

I thought it was good. Next week's looks interesting.

BEN BROWDER!

The last two series oscillated between brilliant & horrible episodes (I'll leave it up to y'all to decide which were which). So far this series only has "good" episodes that fall directly between those etremes. I wish these had been pepped through earlier to even out Moffat's earlier seasons.

For the second week in a row, a stunning episode. The whole "feel" of the episode was brilliant, the music was perfect for the beautiful settings that were in the episode. It would look so cool in 3D on a cinema screen, much like the other episodes in S7 in that respect.

The whole plotline between the Gunslinger and Jex was really clever, and I loved seeing a darker side of the Doctor. Kahler Jex was very well portrayed, and the vengeance plotline reminded me of the Caves of Androzani a bit. I was uneasy on the Doctor’s change of heart after Isaac died, I suppose in hindsight it works but it seemed a bit rushed at the time. The Ponds were underused, but rightly so – this story focused on the Doctor and his morality. If they had the Doctor travelling solo at this time, it would have been just as good.

The Gunslinger himself was one of the coolest looking new “villains” (he wasn’t really a villain, was he? In fact, I was probably on his side!) we’ve had in a while, but the best part was that he wasn’t just a scary looking guy, but he had a great motive, one that we could all understand.

The resolution of the story was although obvious, very satisfying, and I think this might well be looked back on as a classic.

Evil Monkey Pope wrote:

The last two series oscillated between brilliant & horrible episodes (I'll leave it up to y'all to decide which were which). So far this series only has "good" episodes that fall directly between those etremes. I wish these had been pepped through earlier to even out Moffat's earlier seasons.

My experience with the new series in general has been either hit or miss even from the very beginning, but somehow Series 7 has be on average very watchable by comparison.

It's been a pleasant surprise.

There are the Usual Clever lines, I like the Rant the Doctor Went on when he got mad.
Again like the last episode i walked my Dog in the middle of the Episode cause the story was not Holding my Attention. There were episodes i would not even go to the Restroom but So far Season 7 isnt doing it for me.

******* Funny thing noticed in the last Episode!!!!*****

When the Doctor put the electrical wire on the 2 Robots as they went off line they sang Daisy From 2001 Movie like when Hal when off Line. I caught it last night and Lmfao<- i believe are the correct initials.

Another okay episode. The preview for next week looks like a more interesting idea.

I LOVED IT! It was so good! It was almost like a Bible story, a great lesson about forgiveness. Loved it.

My only complaint would be that it moved all too quickly at the beginning of the episode. We got straight into the story a bit too quick. The rest of the episode, however, made up for that.

As I was watching it I was on the edge of my seat. The scene where the Doctor throws Jex out of the town and across the line was a rather worrying scene. I hated how the Doctor left Soloman to die in the last episode, I was worried he was going to do the same thing. For once I was cheering Amy on, she put him in his place and reminded him of what was right. I'm a bit uncomfortable that Rory was at first happy to let the Doctor have Jex killed - Rory being one of my favourite characters at the minute, it was a bit disappointing. That goes to show that this episode was powerfully written because it made me like Amy more than Rory for once!

The Gunslinger was pretty cool. I wasn't expecting him to be that great but I was pretty pleased with how he turned out. I hope we get an action figure of him!

All in all this has been one of my favourite episodes of all. A good lesson of morals in a world that sorely needs it. 9/10!