K's Doctor 7.3 Review

Some of this may be repetitive if you check out Jana's earlier post, but I wanted to share a specific review of last night's Doctor Who episode, "A Town Called Mercy."  Heavy on the SPOILERS!

The opening was interesting, but I'm a little tired of voiceovers by random people.  Don't get me wrong, I don't miss the Amy intro, but I'd rather just jump into the action.  Also, it was obviously space meets cowboys, so it made me miss Firefly.    I found the setting distracting to the story. So much emphasis was made on it being a "western" that it had to fight itself before it could become serious.  Matt Smith was adorable dancing through the Western cliches, but accents were distractingly bad, and I found that it was just trying too hard.  Maybe this is just the result of having a British television show portray the American West.  The sheriff was all right, but most of the other characters seemed more like caricatures than real people.



The Doctor or The Sheriff?

 I've repeatedly complained about missing River, but when Amy acknowledged she was a mom, that was actually enough for me.  This was not an episode that seemed like it should include River; it wasn't about collecting a group like last week, and River wasn't any business of this guy's.  Amy didn't need to provide him with details.   This simple acknowledgement that River existed (the VERY first this season) was satisfying and seemed appropriate.  I still miss her, but I didn't feel a gaping hole where she should have been, like I did last week.



Solomon (David Bradley) from 7.2

 This episode did manage to overcome it's cheesiness after a bit.  When the Doctor grabbed the gun and was ready to let the cyborg man kill "the alien doctor," I was horrified and thrilled.  Matt Smith is really coming into his own in my opinion.  It created a complex situation that brought back the feel of some darker Tennant episodes.    It also proved that his merciless action last week (letting the bad guy just die) was not careless, out of character writing, but establishing a pattern. 




Amy

 
This was a story that made you ask questions and I loved it. It is true that sometimes the questions were pushed in our face just a little more than neccesary.  I want to come to questions of right and wrong on my own, and it was very spelled out this time, but it still was a great episode.  It was my favorite this season so far. 

Other things of note- The Doctor is 1200 now, so he's aged a bit and hasn't spent all that time with Rory and Amy.  This is obviously something that Moffat made some effort to point out, and it's the reason the Doctor has gone through some changes.  Amy and Rory specifically said that they need to spend some time at home because they're aging faster than their friends.  This is yet another mention this season (in addition to families and jobs) of life outside of the Doctor.  You can feel Moffat setting something up.

I can't wait to see what other people thing about Season 7 so far!