The Doctor walks into a saloon. Instead of ordering whiskey, he gets a bar fight, a cyborg, and an ethical meltdown.
Short Synopsis
The Doctor, Amy, and Rory stumble into a Wild West town plagued by a murderous cyborg Gunslinger. The town’s protecting a scientist who isn’t as innocent as he seems, and the Doctor has to decide whether to hand him over or find another way out. Cue shootouts, moral philosophy, and Matt Smith in a cowboy hat.
Extended Storyline
The TARDIS lands in a dusty Western town called — no joke — Mercy. The Doctor, naturally, is over the moon. He’s got the hat. He’s got the accent (sort of). He’s got that wide-eyed look that says, “Yes, please, give me a horse.” The horse, by the way, is named Susan. (Don’t ask.)
But this isn’t your average yeehaw postcard. Mercy is under siege. There’s an invisible boundary around the town, and just outside it lurks the Gunslinger: a towering cyborg with half his face missing and a Terminator glare that screams, “I’ll be back.” His mission? He wants one man: Kahler-Jex, an alien doctor the townsfolk have taken in.
Jex, played with smarmy charm by Adrian Scarborough, is the town’s savior. He fixed their electricity, healed the sick, baked the pies (okay, maybe not the pies). He’s basically their alien Florence Nightingale. The Gunslinger wants him dead. The townsfolk want him alive. The Doctor? Caught in the middle with a hat that doesn’t quite fit.
Naturally, the Doctor investigates. Because nothing screams “trustworthy” like a man who casually powers an Old West town with alien technology. Sure enough, Jex has secrets. The TARDIS crew discovers his crashed spaceship and, with a little poking around, the truth comes spilling out: Jex was a war criminal. Back home, he built cyborg soldiers — the Gunslinger among them. He didn’t heal people; he experimented on them. His science ended lives as often as it saved them.
Cue the moral gut punch. The Gunslinger isn’t some heartless killer. He’s a victim of Jex’s “research.” Now he’s hunting his creator across the stars, determined to dish out some cyborg justice.
Here’s where things get messy. The Doctor — yes, the Doctor — nearly loses it. He grabs a gun and seriously considers handing Jex over to the Gunslinger. Amy, bless her, has to talk him down, reminding him that when he starts judging people that coldly, he’s not the Doctor anymore. (It’s one of those moments where Amy proves she’s not just “the companion.” She’s his moral compass.)
Meanwhile, the townsfolk are caught in their own bind. They owe Jex for everything, but can they keep protecting him when the Gunslinger threatens to kill them all? It’s classic Western tension: who do you stand with, the outlaw or the community?
In the end, it’s Jex who resolves the standoff. Wracked with guilt, he realizes he can’t keep hiding behind the town’s protection. Instead of letting the Gunslinger kill innocents, he walks back to his crashed ship, locks himself inside, and blows it up. The Doctor doesn’t have to make the choice; Jex does it for him.
The Gunslinger, left without vengeance to take, is broken — but the Doctor offers him a way to live with purpose. Instead of roaming the stars, he becomes the town’s guardian, patrolling the borders of Mercy like a sheriff with a conscience. The last shot we get is the Gunslinger watching over the people from a hilltop: part protector, part warning, all myth.
And as for the Doctor? He tips his hat, mounts Susan the horse, and heads back to the TARDIS, a little wearier and a lot more haunted. Because for all the trappings of a cowboy romp, this was one of those episodes where Eleven’s darkness peeked through — just enough to make you wonder how close he was to pulling that trigger.