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"If, like us, you were blown away by Doctor Who&amp;#039;s seventh series premiere &amp;#039;Asylum of the Daleks&amp;#039; and were left a little underwhelmed the following week by &amp;#039;Dinosaurs on a Spaceship&amp;#039;, then you&amp;#039;ll have found the opening moments of &amp;#039;A Town Called Mercy&amp;#039; rather heartening. We were promised a full-blooded Wild West adventure, but instead we begin with an impressive, action-packed sci-fi opener that immediately establishes &amp;quot;mysterious space cowboy assassin&amp;quot; the Gunslinger as an effective threat. It&amp;#039;s a hell of a teaser and immediately more impressive than anything we saw last week. The promised Western thrills come soon enough - the impressive Mercy set, Saul Metzstein&amp;#039;s dynamic direction and one of Murray Gold&amp;#039;s best scores in a long time all combining to create an effective atmosphere and believable world. And with Toby Whithouse&amp;#039;s latest Who effort setting out its stall so strongly, Matt Smith (who&amp;#039;s clearly having a wonderful time) also manages to pitch his performance just right. This week, the 29-year-old tempers the darker side of his Doctor with just the ride amount of humour - it&amp;#039;s a difficult balance to strike and one that a solid script helps get right.  Once the Doctor and the Ponds stumble across Mercy&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Keep Out&amp;#039; signs and straight into trouble, it&amp;#039;s not long before Ben Browder - he of Farscape and Stargate SG-1 fame - makes a dramatic entrance, delivering a nicely understated performance as stoic cowboy Isaac. Hiring an iconic US cult star for this pivotal role was a smart move - not only does Browder have a certain cach\u00E9 with sci-fi fans, but there&amp;#039;s also a legitimacy to his performance that a Brit star adopting a Yank twang couldn&amp;#039;t hope to match. Isaac is helping hide Kahler-Jex (Adrian Scarborough) from the Gunslinger - an apparently mild-mannered medic who&amp;#039;s brought advanced technology to Mercy - well, advanced by Old West standards anyway. It seems a little odd that the Doctor doesn&amp;#039;t object to Jex&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;time meddling&amp;#039;, but perhaps he&amp;#039;s just won over by his new friend&amp;#039;s seemingly good nature...  The whole &amp;#039;don&amp;#039;t judge on appearances&amp;#039; theme isn&amp;#039;t a particularly new idea - Doctor Who itself explored it as far back as 1965&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Galaxy 4&amp;#039; - but Upstairs Downstairs actor Scarborough is initially affable and affecting as Doc Jex, so it&amp;#039;s a genuine surprise when the character is revealed to be a war criminal. At the episode&amp;#039;s midway point, the Doctor&amp;#039;s ruthless streak - which has seen quite a few outings of late - emerges once again when he&amp;#039;s provoked by Jex. You really shouldn&amp;#039;t test the man who blew up his entire race and the Daleks with them, and that&amp;#039;s entirely the point - the Time Lord wants to expel Jex because he sees the worst of himself in his foe. One of the few downsides to &amp;#039;A Town Called Mercy&amp;#039; is that Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) don&amp;#039;t get much to do, but the Ponds being drawn into the Doctor&amp;#039;s debate and finding themselves split over Jex&amp;#039;s fate is interesting. That said, it seems strange that Whithouse would choose to have Rory - the nurse, the preserver of lives - be the one who&amp;#039;s more willing to let the Gunslinger find his target.  Either way, it&amp;#039;s nice to see the Doctor&amp;#039;s newfound bloodthirstiness addressed following Solomon&amp;#039;s dark fate, which we raised concerns about last week. &amp;#039;Mercy&amp;#039; is more than just the setting of this episode, it&amp;#039;s the central theme too. It&amp;#039;s a quality that the Gunslinger is sorely lacking and, following the tragic accidental death of Isaac, the episode employs another Wild West staple in its final act - that of the High Noon showdown.  Like Gary Cooper before him, the town turns against the Doctor - who&amp;#039;s been thrown into the role of Marshall - and the episode comes pleasingly full-circle, as both our lead and Jex strive for a more noble solution, even if the latter has to take his own life to put an end to the killing. &amp;#039;A Town Called Mercy&amp;#039; is a more straightforward adventure than Whithouse&amp;#039;s last Who script - the more abstract &amp;#039;The God Complex&amp;#039; - but it&amp;#039;s no less enjoyable for it. Rich with emotion and bolstered by strong guest performances, this is one Wild West adventure that certainly isn&amp;#039;t shooting blanks.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/doctor-who/review/a405237/doctor-who-a-town-called-mercy-review/>