Series Part 3: A town called Mercy

Doctor Who
Episode Three
A Town Called Mercy
 By  Toby Whitehouse
Directed by Sauz Metzstein
Produced By Marcus Wilson
Main Enemy: Kahler-Jex
Others: The Gunslinger

Matt Smith
Karen Gillan
Arthur Darvill
Ben Browder
Adrian Scarborough
Andrew Brooke

15 SEPTEMBER 2012
On BBC One

Plot:
A Cyborg hunts down a war criminal in the American town of Mercy.
Any-one who crosses the border that surrounds the city, gets shot by the Gunslinger who appears to want to want to kill the 'Alien Doctor'.

The video above (My first one, yes!) shows how the People on Kahler, built The Gunslinger in order to help win a war on their planet
This was used as the prequel to the episode


"When I was a child, my favourite story was about a man who lived forever, but whose eyes were heavy with the weight of all he'd seen.
A man who fell from the stars"

These are the words that open the story. The voice of a Southern American woman are heard as we see images of the stars followed by an entirely hostile and desolate environment.
An unknown vehicle is shot down and from the vision of another being, a Cyborg with the word TERMINATE, appears as the vision becomes fixed on the craft.
A lone man, one of the race of the Kahler, scientist Kahler-Mas,emerges from the shot down craft having tried to crawl to safety.
He faces a dark figure and announces that he knew that the Cyborg would find him. The figure of the being is revealed. Face old and scarred, with half of it fused with cybernetic parts, one of it's eyes shines a bright blue light and he wears clothing that are suited to the  dusty environment of the Wild West. It has one large gun in place of a hand and forearm. The Gunslinger.
Kahler-Mas is then told to make peace with his gods, asks the Gunslinger if he's is the last one.
Before he answers, The Gunslinger shoots Mas before replying, "No, there is one other. The Doctor."

Kahler-Tek aka The Gunslinger

The Doctor and Amy and Rory, while aiming for the 'Day Of The Dead' festival in Mexico, arrive in America and discover a small town. Standing on the other side of 'Mercy', a town which houses only 81 residents, they realise that it is totally isolated from the outside world by a barrier of small stones and lumps of wood, which have been put there mysteriously.

There is also a sign  that says keep out.
Spying a sign that says 'Keep Out', the  Doctor tells Rory that he see it as a challenge and that 'keep out' signs are suggestions rather than instructions, "like Dry-clean only." They cross the border receiving aggressive stares from the residential towns-folk and notice an electric street lamp in the settlement, ten years before such a thing existed.

The group walk into the local saloon where the Doctor, toothpick in his mouth,  asks for 'the strong stuff,' (tea), telling the barmaid to leave the bag in.
When he mentions  loudly that he is the Doctor, everyone else in the bar rises, which the Time-Lord assumes to be a sign of good manners...until the local Undertaker begins to his measurements.. He is then asked by one the inhabitants if he is an alien and when his reply is "yes", is forcibly picked up, carried out of the saloon and thrown over the boarder, just as  the Gunslinger begins to appear.
The Doctor catches sight of the imposing figure of the Slinger and tries to cross back over the line but his attempts are halted by the townsfolk who all have their guns aimed at him to prevent him from doing so. That  is until the town's Marshall Issac, fires a bullet into the air and to the murmurs of  disagreement from the other folks, tells the Doctor to get back over the line.
A young man tells Issac that the Time-Lord himself announced that he was the Doctor and that presumably, that's who the Gunslinger is after. But The Marshal knows otherwise and the Doctor, Amy and Rory follow him back to his office.

The town's Marshal, Issac

Issac relays to the Doctor that nothing gets pass the barrier, in or out. Not even food or reinforcements. That the only reason why the Gunslinger allowed the Doctor and his friends in, was because they weren't carrying anything that might be of help to the people of Mercy.
The Doctor soon deduces that the 'Alien Doctor' must be in Mercy.
The Alien Doctor emerges and identifies himself as Kahler-Jex, the Kahler being a species that the Doctor
recognizes as one of the most ingenious races in the universe, citing that they could build a spaceship out of tupperware and moss.
 (Though they really can't be that imaginative, if all of their inhabitants have the planet's name for a forename)

Khaler Jex

Jex explains that he was able to use his ship as a generator to work up some rudimentary light and heating for the town and that two years after he arrived, there was an outbreak of Cholera and that thanks to him, not a single person died.
He is asked why the Gunslinger wants to kill him but is interrupted by Issac before he can answer. Apparently, even though he saved the inhabitants of Mercy, they are now so fearful of the Gunslinger, that they are more than willing to hand over Kahler Jex.
The Doctor asks if Jex's ship can be fixed and when he is told that it is beyond repair, the Doctor suggests that they evacuate the town and escape in the TARDIS. But the as the Gunslinger is still out there and he needs a way to get pass him, his only solution is to send Rory and Issac across the dessert as a distraction.

Meanwhile, the Doctor asks to borrow a Horse called Joshua, though soon finds out, (because he speaks Horse) that his name is actually Susan and that he wants people to respect his life choices.
The Doctor and Susan come across a small egg shaped pod covered with a brown sheet and camouflaged to blend in with the desert setting. He then manages to open it with the Sonic Screwdriver but activates an alarm which he disables and enters the craft. Once inside, he deactivates a self destruct sequence and proceeds to access the files of Doctor Kahler Jex, discovering the experiments that were put into progress back on Kahler.
The Alarm however, has attracted the attention of the Gunslinger himself, who realizes exactly who Jex is.
He tells the Doctor that there will be no more warning shots and that the next person that crosses the towns border line, will be shot. "Make sure it's Jex."

Meanwhile, Jex holds Amy at gunpoint when he hears the alarm and tells her that he really should have followed the plan but is caught by Issac.
When the Doctor returns, he hears Jex say that he thought that if he put everyone in enough danger, that he could...But he is cut off by the Doctor who tells the rest of the group that he is lying.
He tells them all about how Kahler-Jex killed innocent people on the operating table and that he, along with other scientists, experimented in trying to turn them into weapons, much like the Gunslinger.

. Jex doesn't see this as wrong and thinks of himself as a war hero.
He explains that thanks to his plans, the war on Kahler which had been raging for so long, and had decimated half of the planet, was over within a week. The Gunslinger however, a survivor of the experiment, sought to gain revenge by killing Jex.

While Amy, Rory and Issac try to figure out what to do to him, Jex says that looking at the Doctor is like looking into a mirror (They must have some very strange mirrors on Kahler) and that he thanks the gods that his people weren't relying on him to save them.
The Doctor, now furious, tells him that the townsfolk were expecting just that, grabs him and throws him outside the border, holding a gun to him to prevent him from re-entering Mercy.
Amy takes a gun and fires it in the air telling the Doctor to let Jex back in.

The Doctor, although still angry agrees and tries to convince Jex to re-enter the town.
The Gunslinger arrives and gives Jex a chance to make peace with his gods and just as the Slinger is about to kill shoot him, Issac pushes Jex out of the way and is shot instead.
With his last dying breath, he tells the Doctor to look after Jex and to protect the town, making him the new Marshall.

The Doctor threatens Jex and Issac is killed

Jex is put in a cell and the Doctor tells Kahler-Tek, (The Gunslinger), that things have gone too far. The Gunslinger agrees but says that if Jex is not handed over by Noon tomorrow, then he will kill everyone in Mercy before disappearing

At night, the people request an audience with the Doctor who want them to hand over over Jex so that they can kill him. He is told to "take a walk" and that by the time he returns, everything would be done.

The Doctor says that violence doesn't end violence and that Issac would never have wanted to see the town turning against itself.
He convinces them that he would be able to save everyone, if he was given the chance.

He figures out that Jex dedicated his life to the town of Mercy to 'pay his debt' for his crimes.
Jex then tells the Time-Lord that in his culture, when he dies his spirit will climb a mountain carrying the souls of everyone he's wronged and that he will have to face them and that includes Issac who Jex said was his friend. He says that that is why he fears death and that, "We all carry our prisons with us."

At midday, the next day, the Doctor faces Tek in a stand off. He uses the sonic screwdriver to distract him, breaking all the windows. The Doctor's has a  plan which is to paint the sign that Jex has on his face, on the faces of the  townspeople who are sent out to distract him while Jex escapes. But Tek notices a flaw in one of the paintings and realizes that it's a trick and switches to manual targeting .(It wasn't before, by the way)
Jex does finally escape to his craft but initiates the self-destruct sequences, blowing up himself and his craft, in order to end the war.

The sign used to try and distract the gunslinger

Kahler-Tek admits that Jex behaved with honour at the end and says that he will go into the desert and self-destruct but not before the Doctor suggests that maybe, he stays on as the Town's protector.

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Episode 4:The Power Of Three

Coming Soon