And Remember...

And Remember...

 

Series Seven is seeing a very definite theme emerging at this point, and it is one that builds on a key Steven Moffat trope from his first two seasons as show-runner.

That theme is memory.

Series Five’s main plot arc concerned the crack in time caused by the destruction of the TARDIS. The crack erased people from time and thus made all those who knew them forget they ever existed. This was illustrated most obviously by the heartbreaking (second) death of Rory, and Amy’s doomed attempts to hang onto her memories of him. When the Doctor himself was erased from time, it was only Amy’s memory of him, planted in her head by the Doctor when she was eleven years old, that brought him back.

 

The many deaths of Rory Williams (Part Two).

 

Series Six introduced the Silence, a race who had long-since invaded Earth, whose modus operandi involved making people forget they had ever seen them the moment they turned away from the freaky-fingered felons. Even the Doctor was unable to picture them the moment they left his sight. Only through a subliminal message could the Doctor order mankind to kill the Silents, an order that could well have caused the aliens’ genocide and started the Doctor down his current path of letting his foes die rather than offering them a way to save themselves. Fast forward to the end of the season, and we discover that Madame Kovarian’s eyepatch was in fact a way of externally storing her memories of the Silents. The only way to remember the Silence is to store them on a computer drive. Once all the drives are destroyed who will remember the Silence then? Yes, they and Madame Kovarian are eventually defeated, but only in a parallel reality where time has stopped. For all we know, they are still out there, waiting for their moment of revenge, forgotten by the Doctor and his friends.

 

The Silence often abused their powers by lurking in women's toilets.

 

The Silence were revealed to be a religious order devoted to the stopping of a question that must never be asked. Namely ‘Doctor Who?’ In the very final moments of Series Six, the Doctor made the decision to step back into the shadows and become a myth once more. Did this choice put the Doctor onto the path to where that question will be answered? The answer appears to be yes.

Series Seven has brought us three stories so far, and each one has in some way touched upon this theme of memory. Asylum of the Daleks has Oswin, a girl who has forgotten, or rather is suppressing the memory, that she had been converted into a Dalek. She is no longer the person she thinks she is, a condition which may or may not apply to the Doctor at this point. Certainly it is to the Doctor we need to look. Oswin wipes all knowledge of the Doctor from the Dalek pathweb, so that when he returns to the Dalek saucer at the end of the story, the Daleks have no idea who he is. And what do they ask? ‘Doctor Who?’ of course, a question repeated over and over and celebrated by the Doctor. But this is the question that, according to the Silence, must never be asked; a question that terrified them so much they attempted to kill him (and in the eyes of the universe succeeded). Oswin’s last words, said directly to the camera are ‘And remember...’ Remember what exactly? Has she manipulated the Doctor’s memory too? Is she aware of the Doctor having memory problems? After all, she did scan him earlier in the episode. Then we have the slightly odd line as the TARDIS team prepare to face the Parliament of the Daleks. ‘What do we do?’ Amy asks. ‘Make them remember you,’ the Doctor tells her. Amy’s puzzled expression shows that this line makes no more sense to her as it does to the audience. It’s too strange a line not to mean something further down the line as Moffat’s arc starts to reveal itself properly.

 

'And remember...'

 

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship teases us with the belief that Solomon knew who the Doctor was on three occasions. Firstly we hear him perk up when he hears the word ‘Doctor’, but this turns out to be because he has been badly wounded by velociraptors and is in need of medical attention to keep his mangled legs. The second moment is when Solomon has his computer scan the Doctor, only to discover that he doesn’t exist. We fully expect the Doctor’s identity to be revealed here, and that absence of information again causes Solomon to question who he is; although Solomon doesn’t actually ask the forbidden question in this instance, we can assume that he at least thought it. The third tease occurs when Solomon discovers something else on board more precious than the dinosaurs, something unique. All indications are that he is talking about the TARDIS, but in fact he means Nefertiti. The Doctor and the TARDIS have been forgotten by the universe, but not by everybody. Riddell, Amy and Rory clearly know who he is, and quite probably the Indian Space Agency, although it is equally likely that, after monitoring the space news service, the Doctor simply inveigles his way into their confidence in his usual manner.

 

'You don't exist...'

 

In A Town Called Mercy, the Doctor reveals his age as 1200, indicating that a lot of time has passed since the events of Series Six, and in all that time the Time Lord has hidden in the shadows. We can imagine that he has used the better part of half a century proactively wiping himself from the history books rather than merely hiding away. Again the idea of memory comes to the fore when Isaac says of the Doctor (and Kahler-Jex): ‘You’re both good men. You just forget it sometimes.’ That’s a mighty perceptive comment from a man who has only just met the Doctor, so is it part of the theme? What leads Isaac to believe the Doctor has forgotten he is a good man?  At this time, we can’t be sure. However, it is Amy’s confrontation with her lifelong friend that is most revealing. ‘What have you turned into?’ she asks him at gunpoint, essentially asking ‘Doctor Who?’ If his most loyal companion doesn’t know who he is, then nobody does. The Doctor’s response is ambiguous; he appears for a moment not to know himself either.

 

'What have you turned into?'

 

The question has been asked three times now in three episodes. That isn’t coincidence. The signs are beginning to point to a future revelation that the Doctor has forgotten who he is as well. His merciless behaviour is at odds with his previous moral code. Could it be that two encounters in close order with memory-altering beings and space-time events have damaged his memory, as well as that of the universe as a whole? Could this be leading us into the anniversary year with the Doctor forgetting his identity and requiring the help of his former selves to restore it? Could this be a way of setting up a general reset of the series to allow it to continue for another fifty years? Are we leading to the forbidden question being asked by the Doctor himself?

One thing is clear; the imminent departure of Amy and Rory is only going to accelerate this process, as another two of the Doctor’s closest friends are lost to him and consigned to memory, and a new friend, already met, is remembered...

Review: A Town Called Mercy

A Town Called Mercy Review

 

Immediate Reaction

After last week’s dinosaur romp, A Town Called Mercy was an altogether more thoughtful and measured affair. It’s good to see that, amid the movie-size plot ideas, there’s still room to explore a concept thoroughly. The presentation of Doctor Kahler-Jex as a man haunted by the terrible things he has done in the name of war, seeking redemption in helping others yet forever wracked by the guilt of his atrocities, uncomfortably mirrors the Doctor. Although the presentation of a line that the Doctor crosses by showing Jex no mercy at all is a rather too literal one, we again see a brutal side to the Eleventh Doctor, building on his treatment of Solomon last week. Without a constant companion, he will let his enemies die without even the second chance the Tenth Doctor offered. This darker, crueller Doctor is causing Amy and Rory to grow ever more distant and he seems to know it, but he doesn’t appear to be able to do anything to stop their gradual separation.

Matt Smith is well-served by a script that offers him comedy and dramatic confrontations in equal doses. A Town Called Mercy is tonally more balanced than Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, although it might have been too talky for a casual audience. The western tropes were all present and correct, yet they were merely background details for the studied examination of the two Doctors in the story.

Amy and Rory were given much less to do, although Jex’s observations about Amy’s motherhood were sharp and beautifully written. Rory in particular was sidelined massively with no real standout moment for him.

Oswin aside, Marshall Isaac, Kahler-Jex and the Gunslinger are the most fully-rounded characters this season has offered us so far. Ben Browder is excellent in everything he does, and that run is certainly continued here. He is the conscience of the story and his death forces the Doctor to assume that mantle. Isaac is the only character who believes in redemption; despite all the evidence both Jex and the Doctor provide to the contrary, he believes them both to be good men. Jex and the Gunslinger are both morally ambiguous creations. Both have committed unforgivable crimes but both are also misunderstood and seeking redemption and indeed mercy.

Toby Whithouse has produced a string of thoughtful scripts that have a strong moral centre and incisive character development. That run continues here, meaning that, as it stands, he is fast becoming the heir apparent to the Doctor Who show-runner mantle, should Steven Moffat choose to relinquish it in the future. He is to Moffat’s reign what Moffat himself was to the Russell T Davies era; a writer who will take a given idea and turn it into something much better.

The story was beautifully shot. The town and the desert were totally convincing and it was very easy to accept that the TARDIS crew were genuinely in the Wild West. The image of the Gunslinger phasing in and out of the desert was actually quite scary, particularly the first time when he threatens the Doctor and his intentions have not yet been established.

I very much enjoyed A Town Called Mercy. Much like Whithouse’s The God Complex from last year, Mercy is a story that will certainly benefit from a second viewing, as the maturity of the theme and the character motivations and ambiguities reveal themselves. It’s the most adult of the stories so far this season, and once again proves, as if it ever needed reiterating, that Doctor Who can be anything it wants to be. An excellent adventure, very well-told.

Oh, and I can’t complete a review without mentioning Susan the gender-confused horse. Genius.

 

Considered Opinion (After Second Watch)

I’ve no doubt that some viewers tuned into A Town Called Mercy expecting a pastiche of the Western genre, much like Back to the Future Part Three. What we got instead was a mature study into the Doctor’s darker side and the most ambiguous set of villains that I can remember seeing in Doctor Who. I’m quite certain that Mercy’s talky nature lost a great many of its younger audience, but as I touched on above, Doctor Who is many different things, often at the same time. Therein lies the key to its success and continued longevity.

Toby Whithouse’s intelligent script referenced  all the elements we expect from a cowboy, such as the saloon sequence, the duel at midday, the local gaol and the Marshal/ Sheriff who believes in the good of his town. Yet these elements are merely dressing for the main element of the plot; the Doctor coming face to face with a war criminal who has done terrible things but is seeking redemption for his past sins. In truth, the Doctor is coming face to face with himself.

'You're both good men. You just forget it sometimes.'

 

In a period of Doctor Who where mentions of the Time War are correctly becoming more scarce, it’s good to see that, given the right forum, the subject still has fertile areas to mine. The Doctor’s guilt at his genocide at the end of the Time War comes to the fore as he discovers how Kahler-Jex pretty much became the Josef Mengele of his world, surgically altering people to become cyborg killers.  Jex’s argument that the atrocities he carried out were done in the heat of war and in the name of peace fall on deaf ears. Or rather, they strike a chord a little tto close to home for the Doctor, causing him to drag Jex out to be murdered by the Gunslinger and to eventually aim a gun right at Jex’s head. It’s not many villains (if Jex is indeed a villain in the truest sense) who can unbalance the Doctor to the point where his companion needs to point a gun at him to make him back down.

This exploration of the Doctor’s guilt and rage are new areas for Matt Smith’s Doctor, and he rises to the challenge perfectly, as if there would ever be any doubt about that. This is a Doctor in his prime, able to switch between the emotions at will and deepen our understanding of what’s behind the genial facade. He is given a lot of good material in A Town Called Mercy, and once more he bats it out of the park.

If Mercy has a fault, it’s that it sacrifices its rich background for a lot of scenes of people standing around talking. Rory and Amy feel particularly short-changed by not being given anything heroic to do. There was an opportunity in the middle of the episode for Jex to kidnap Amy at gunpoint, perhaps allowing Rory to rescue her in a shoot-out, but this comes to nothing in the end. After all, Jex is as conflicted an individual as the Doctor, so it would be wrong to paint him in the black of an out-and-out villain even though the story really needs one.

'He's called Susan and he wants you to respect his life choices.'

 

In a similar vein, the Gunslinger moves from unknown force to sympathetic creation a little too quickly. Apart from the opening pre-credits sequence where we see him kill another of the Kahler, the Gunslinger’s potential as an iconic monster is slightly squandered. It would have been good to have seen him remain as the silent threat in the story right up until the moment he spares the little girl and the townsfolk in the chapel.

But these are niggling issues that don’t detract from the sheer quality of Whithouse’s writing. Here is a man who is setting himself up nicely as the Crown Prince to Steven Moffat’s King. If Doctor Who is beginning to look at the possibilities for a new show-runner, they need look no further than here. I would love to see him deal with a returning monster next, just to see how he develops them. His four scripts for the series have seen him move from romps to more serious fare, so as a writer he clearly has the range.

Oh, and there’s definitely a developing theme regarding memory. See here for more on that. And the Doctor’s new-found dark side is only going to lead him into trouble, perhaps when Amy and Rory are no longer there to be the two voices of his conscience...

'Violence doesn't end violence. It extends it.'

 

A Town Called Mercy’s Ten Brilliant Bits

1.       The Doctor has been forcibly ejected from the town of Mercy. Carried aloft and thrown outside the town border line, he stands and dusts himself off. And in the background, the Gunslinger appears, phasing in and out of reality as he teleports ever closer. ‘He’s coming,’ says the Preacher. ‘Oh God, he’s coming.’ The fear on the Doctor’s face is genuine. Like the audience, he has no idea of the threat the Gunslinger poses, only that in this moment, disappearing and reappearing at will, he is genuinely scary.

 

2.       Ben Browder’s Isaac is an instantly likeable creation. In a story centred around characters and relationships, he is a laconic and calming presence. His immediate trust in the Doctor reveals him to be a wise man, seeing the good in others when sometimes they cannot see it themselves. He believes in mercy, both the town and the concept, and his self-sacrifice is the thing that, even more than Amy’s arguments, brings the Doctor back to calmness. In a story where nobody is black or white, Isaac is the voice of reason.

 

3.       Kahler-Jex is beautifully realised by Adrian Scarborough. Initially genial, we see the darker side to him as his secret is revealed and he engages the Doctor in a war of words where neither of them ends up being the moral victor. His conscience is never far from the surface, particularly when the Doctor tells him that he cannot choose when and how to pay his debt. As a mirror image of the war criminal the Doctor believes himself to be, Jex simultaneously earns our pity and our disgust. Scarborough walks this fine line with great confidence, creating one of the most complex villains the series has ever seen.

 

4.       Susan the gender-confused horse is a wonderful creation. He (she?) deserves her own section just for the interactions with the Doctor. Matt Smith responds to every noise his horsey co-star makes, causing me to wonder just how much of his conversation was scripted and how much was ad-libbed by Smith.

 

5.       The moment when the gunslinger bursts into the chapel with the single intention of massacring all the residents of Mercy cowering inside, but sees the little girl who knocked over the books in the first place. He makes eye contact with her and for a fleeting second you see his entire back story play out across his eyes. The Gunslinger used to be a father before he became a parody of a man, and he cannot bring himself to kill her. He powers down and walks away, suddenly a much more complicated creation.

 

6.       The Doctor has found Jex’s spacecraft, but the ship obstinately will not open for him. What follows is a glorious few seconds of jump cuts, as Matt Smith’ physical comedy prowess comes to the fore and the Doctor tries a succession of failed attempts to get inside.

 

7.       The Doctor strides into the Mercy saloon. In time-honoured fashion, everybody stops talking and looks at the newcomer. The Doctor leans nonchalantly against the bar. ‘Tea,’ he growls to the bargirl. ‘But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.’ At the same time, he is chewing on a matchstick that somehow manages to lodge itself in the roof of his mouth so he can’t get it out. More effortless Doctorish behaviour from Mr Smith.

'Tea. But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.'

 

8.       The confrontation between Amy and the Doctor, which sees Amy draw a gun against her friend, hints at just how far apart the two of them have grown. He used to be her raggedy Doctor, but now he is the sort of man who will point a gun at a stranger in judgement. In the town of Mercy, there is none to be found in the Doctor.

 

9.       After Isaac’s death, the Doctor has assumed the mantle of Marshal of Mercy. Isaac’s death has shown him the error of his ways, so when he is confronted by a lynch mob, out for Jex’s blood, he defuses the standoff where earlier he caused it. ‘Violence doesn’t end violence,’ he tells Walter, the eighteen year-old kid charged with leading the mob. ‘It extends it.’ This is as true for the Doctor’s earlier actions as it is for how he conducts his life. ‘You really worth the risk?’ asks Walter, swayed by his words. ‘Don’t know,’ admits the Doctor. ‘But you are.’ Once again, the Doctor has found his moral centre.

 

10.   The high noon duel plays on all the clichés of the Western genre, with clock creaking ominously towards twelve, townsfolk in hiding and the Doctor striking his best cowboy pose. After witnessing the Doctor wield a gun earlier on, we are hoping he doesn’t resort to trying to outdraw the Gunslinger. It turns out we needn’t have worried; a fast draw of the trusty sonic screwdriver scrambles the Gunslinger enough to end the standoff.

 

A Town Called Mercy continues Series Seven’s rich vein of form. It occurred to me that I haven’t enjoyed the three opening stories of a season since Series Three and Martha. It may have been talkier than the previous two stories in the season, but it is a tale that rewards repeat viewing, and that can only be a good thing.

When did killing someone become and option?'

 

Overall Rating: 8/10