Doctor Who ’s offbeat time traveler has often been accused of transforming human beings into weapon — most notably , Davros made this claim in “ Journey ’s End . ” But last night ’s sequence , “ A Ithiel Town call Mercy , ” features another alien Doctor of the Church who ’s literally made masses into weapon system — and meanwhile , it construct a solid event that the Doctor ’s companions are n’t weapons at all , but quite the turnaround .
Spoilers ahead …
In “ A Town anticipate Mercy , ” there ’s an alien doctor named Kahler Jex , who experimented on some of his own people , turning them into cyborg soldier as a substance of finish a direful , interminable warfare . Jex feels remorse and shame over his tremendous experiments , peculiarly because he believes in an afterlife where he ’ll have to stock all the souls of the people he ’s harm up a steep hill . And now , he ’s living in the Wild West town of Mercy , working as a doctor and helping hoi polloi — or using a township full of innocent people as human shields , depending on how you look at it .
And one of the cyborg soldiers , the Gunslinger , is track down down the scientist who make him one by one , and Jex is the last on his lean . The Gunslinger is basically a walking case of PTSD and Robocop - esque misery over losing his selfhood and identity operator to the cyborg experiments . Because once you ’ve been turn into a weapon , it ’s almost unsufferable to be anything else . It ’s a neat way of looking at post - war trauma , as both the Gunslinger and Jex ( and the Doctor ) are wracked with suffering over their wartime experience .
The town of Mercy , as Isaac ( the always charming Ben Browder ) severalize us , is a place where everybody can start over and get a second prospect — whether it ’s after the American Civil War , or some alien war in space . It ’s the American way , the vacuous ticket .
The scenes between the Doctor and Jex are passably absorbing , especially once Jex starts to show some blade and sheds some his “ base penitent doctor ” facade . As I mention , both the Doctor and Jex are ghost by the things they ’ve done , and Jex ’s barb about the Doctor not having what it takes to save his own the great unwashed stick harder than Jex could possibly know . Jex makes a strong case that sometimes , being ruthless actually saves lives in the end . It ’s sort of the nuclear bomb possibility of warfare .
So are the Dr. ’s companions a weapon , or a holster ? When the Doctor finds out about Jex ’s past times and decide to hand him over for execution , Amy say this sort of cruelty is what happens when the Doctor travels by himself for too long . He loses pinch with humanity and human chastity . ( And now I wonder if the Doctor had a human familiar during any of the Time War . ) The Doctor ’s been on his own rather a lot lately , between adventures with Amy and Rory , and I ’m pretty sure this is n’t the first time the show ’s advise it ’s not good for him to be so isolated .
Is the Doctor going to go bad , once the Ponds are no longer in the video ?
Soon afterwards , Isaac gets killed , and the Doctor vows to protect Jex in Isaac ’s name , as the new sheriff . He stops the town from handing Jex over after the Gunslinger gives them an ultimatum . rather , the Doctor uses copies of Jex ’s face tattoo to flurry the Gunslinger , so Jex can escape . But or else , Jex screw up himself up to atone for his crime .
A few running things I noticed … First of all , this is the 2nd report in a run-in to sport a confusion of doctor . The Gunslinger is take care for “ the Dr. , ” and we ( the consultation ) assume he means the Doctor . afterwards , the townsfolk of Mercy make the same mistake . Just like last workweek , we kept think Solomon knew the Doctor , when in fact he just was happy that there was a physician around . It ’s like the show is teasing us with people not knowing the Doctor , to emphasize just how incognito he really is .
Another run thing : at the end of the dangerous undertaking , the Doctor call for Amy and Rory to keep go with him , and they turn him down . They do n’t want to have to excuse to their friends why they ’re aging so much faster than everyone else .
And a third thing this taradiddle has in usual with “ Dinosaurs on a Spaceship ” : at the center of it , there ’s a man with awful crimes in his past , who gets float up at the end . But we do n’t see a body . I could n’t help wondering if both Solomon and Jex hold out , and if we ’ll see them both again . ( This was more of a thing last week , when the Doctor break down out of his way to explicate to Solomon exactly how the missile will home in on him , as if forget it up to Solomon to figure out an escape programme . )
To be honest , I was kind of halfhearted about “ A Town call in Mercy , ” especially after enjoying “ dinosaur on a Spaceship ” so much the workweek before . For a few ground :
1 ) It felt like a warmed over version something I ’d seen before , like a Deep Space Nine episode transplanted to the Wild West .
2 ) The Dr. ’s sudden decision to send Kahler to his death half - way through the installment felt out of character and not in a “ wow we ’re seeing a startling new side of the Doctor ” way , but more in a “ this installment was running myopic and needed to invent some conflict ” way . The whole “ Today I honor the victims ” thing seemed jarringly stilted , in context of use . Like the Doctor had make up one’s mind to run for Town Council .
3 ) The bionic man Gunslinger seemed way too Rube Goldberg — you ’re a supersoldier with ( one presumes ) unbelievable targeting systems . If you want to take out one man in a townsfolk full of innocents , you could well wade into the town and take him out without harming anyone else . But or else , you pull out a boundary around the town and herald that anyone who leaves will be shoot — why not just let everyone in the town leave , so your target has no more human shields ? It do no gumption .
All in all , though , this was a clean corking installment for what it was — a gruelling look at war and what it does to us . And like most episodes of Doctor Who lately , it ’s really about viewing the Doctor through a brand new lens of the eye , by render him a hydrofoil . This workweek , it ’s Kahler Jex , another alien physician who harbour dark secrets and can never go home . The matter that separates the Doctor from Jex , we ’re told in no uncertain terms , is that the Doctor has always remembered the importance of mercifulness — usually because he had his companions around to remind him . ( Although , on that bank note , you should see this video recording I made four years agoabout the Dr. ’s total want of mercifulness . apology for the clunky video redaction , I was still study the ropes . )
https://gizmodo.com/doctor-who-was-never-about-showing-mercy-5018136
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