Doctor Who: A Town Called Mercy
Sep. 16th, 2012 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteI think I need to watch this again before I can develop real thoughts on it. My firmest opinion is that Ben Browder's hair was less ridiculous than the beard in Jeremiah Crichton. Which is saying something.
On the whole, I liked it a lot, with some reservations. The main one being that I thought having Jex commit noble suicide at the end was a bit too pat given everything that came before that point, but maybe I'll change my mind about that on a rewatch.
My other frustration was that it felt like there wasn't nearly enough Rory and Amy. I thought they really needed to do more unpacking of Rory agreeing to throw Jex out to be shot vs. Amy convincing the Doctor not to do it. (Amy was totally awesome in that scene, though. But nobody should ever let her handle a gun again.) I suppose since next week's episode seems to be Ponds-heavy they wanted to focus more on the Doctor and the guest characters, but it didn't quite work for me.
On the other hand, there was a lot that did work. I thought the Doctor's reaction to Jex was very believable. Never mind the Master and the Daleks, clearly the guy reminds him way too much of himself. I especially liked his scathing condemnation of Jex's chosen punishment, because going to primitive planets to cure cholera is a small scale version of EXACTLY what the Doctor does to atone for the Time War. (Yes, it's what he did before the Time War too, but I do think that in the new series his world-saving means something different to him.) It's not as though he's ever stood trial for wiping out two entire species, is it? (Well, trying to wipe out two entire species. It's not his fault it didn't stick.)
The other thing I liked a lot was that the episode wisely doesn't get into the details of the Kahler war. We have no idea if Jex was on the 'right' side of the war, or if there was a side that could remotely be called right in the first place. The cyborg gunslinger may be doing the equivalent of hunting down Nazi war criminals, or the equivalent of slaughtering the scientists who designed the atomic bomb. (Not that any of the people who designed the atomic bomb did it by torturing and murdering volunteers from their own side, but their weapon did end up killing upwards of 150,000 people.) For the story this episode is telling, it doesn't matter what the moral nuances of the original war were. All that matters is what Jex and his team did to end it, and how far the cyborg is willing to go to get justice.
On the whole, I liked it a lot, with some reservations. The main one being that I thought having Jex commit noble suicide at the end was a bit too pat given everything that came before that point, but maybe I'll change my mind about that on a rewatch.
My other frustration was that it felt like there wasn't nearly enough Rory and Amy. I thought they really needed to do more unpacking of Rory agreeing to throw Jex out to be shot vs. Amy convincing the Doctor not to do it. (Amy was totally awesome in that scene, though. But nobody should ever let her handle a gun again.) I suppose since next week's episode seems to be Ponds-heavy they wanted to focus more on the Doctor and the guest characters, but it didn't quite work for me.
On the other hand, there was a lot that did work. I thought the Doctor's reaction to Jex was very believable. Never mind the Master and the Daleks, clearly the guy reminds him way too much of himself. I especially liked his scathing condemnation of Jex's chosen punishment, because going to primitive planets to cure cholera is a small scale version of EXACTLY what the Doctor does to atone for the Time War. (Yes, it's what he did before the Time War too, but I do think that in the new series his world-saving means something different to him.) It's not as though he's ever stood trial for wiping out two entire species, is it? (Well, trying to wipe out two entire species. It's not his fault it didn't stick.)
The other thing I liked a lot was that the episode wisely doesn't get into the details of the Kahler war. We have no idea if Jex was on the 'right' side of the war, or if there was a side that could remotely be called right in the first place. The cyborg gunslinger may be doing the equivalent of hunting down Nazi war criminals, or the equivalent of slaughtering the scientists who designed the atomic bomb. (Not that any of the people who designed the atomic bomb did it by torturing and murdering volunteers from their own side, but their weapon did end up killing upwards of 150,000 people.) For the story this episode is telling, it doesn't matter what the moral nuances of the original war were. All that matters is what Jex and his team did to end it, and how far the cyborg is willing to go to get justice.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-16 11:28 am (UTC)That is a very good point, and a very remarkable one given that 98 % of genre shows wouldn't have resisted the temptation to make this either a Nazi war criminal or Atomic bomb scientist parallel.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 03:51 am (UTC)Given that the Civil War was mentioned more than once (which makes sense, given when the story is set) I kept expecting them to either make an explicit parallel with that, or with WWII. I was pleasantly surprised when there wasn't one! Because, inevitably, the audience's view of Jex would have shifted if he'd been working for/against Space Hitler.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-17 06:36 am (UTC)I really did like to see Eleven get properly angry, even if the Time War was not explicitly mentioned - it's something I enjoyed about 9 & 10 that I've missed since Moffat took over.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 04:07 am (UTC)Yeah, I can see why the episode ended up there, I just ... wish they'd done something else. And I don't even know what I wanted the something else to be. Like I said, I may reconcile myself to this on a rewatch.
I really did like to see Eleven get properly angry, even if the Time War was not explicitly mentioned - it's something I enjoyed about 9 & 10 that I've missed since Moffat took over.
Yeah. We've seen him start getting really angry in A Good Man Goes to War and The Doctor's Wife, but both times his mood was derailed by something else before it went too far. Nice to be reminded that all that post-Time War Lonely God stuff is still there, even if Eleventy is better at repressing.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-19 10:47 am (UTC)I concur on all points. :/
Yeah. We've seen him start getting really angry in A Good Man Goes to War and The Doctor's Wife, but both times his mood was derailed by something else before it went too far. Nice to be reminded that all that post-Time War Lonely God stuff is still there, even if Eleventy is better at repressing.
I'm not sure he represses it, but Eleven is certainly more adjusted to it all - his speech to the Atraxi basically said "You know what? I'm an all-powerful genocidal force of nature and I'm going to ask you to leave politely. I really hope you don't make me repeat myself." I like that. There's a definite arc with the last few Doctors - Seven was getting cocky and powerful, Eight had to do the dirty work, Nine was in denial, Ten got the adjusting done and now Eleven gets to wield everything responsibly... sort of. Well, Doctor-y sort of responsibly.