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A Town Called Mercy
That was very interesting. It's not often Doctor Who attempts to tackle a subject as thorny as war crimes and the competing claims of justice and mercy. A Town called Mercy handled the subject matter pretty much as well as it is possible within a show with Doctor Who's constraints. I found its resolution unsatisfactory and I think it showed fairly precisely where one of Doctor Who's limits lies.
I was once on a Dr Who mailing list (I think the Jade Pagoda) where there was a long discussion about whether a Doctor Who book could or should ever attempt to set a story during the Nazi Holocaust. I think there was a general feeling of unease with the idea without people necessarily being able to pin down exactly why they felt it would be quite so hideously inappropriate. After all, it seemed wrong to suggest a Doctor Who story couldn't tackle a serious subject, and even if it obviously wasn't possible for the Doctor to somehow "fix" the Holocaust, there was no reason why a story couldn't engage with it.
I think A Town called Mercy illustrated how a Holocaust story would fail without, thankfully, doing anything so tasteless as setting itself at Auschwitz. A Doctor Who story has to have a dramatically satisfying resolution and these days it probably needs to come after 45 minutes (or 90 if you are lucky). War crimes have terrible and messy legacies that last for generations - as illustrated not only by the fact that the Holocaust is still a matter of political significance today, but also by South Africa, Northern Ireland and dozens of other places world wide currently in the aftermath of conflict and/or oppression. You can not cover the issues raised by such events and find a dramatically satisfying resolution in 45 minutes, because the only resolutions we know of are uncomfortable lingering compromises and allowing the passing of ages to gradually ease the immediacy of the horror.
A Town called Mercy did an excellent job of presenting the issues at stake. All the performances were strong and it had a clear focus, actors who could make the dilemma live, and a director who was prepared to give the actors space to do their work. I think it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daniel_saunders who pointed out, though, that Kahler-Jex ultimately appears to kill himself merely because he has grown tired of the circular argument. Adrian Scarborough put in an excellent performance as Jex. He was believable both as a man who had committed hideous crimes in the name of the ends justifying the means, and as a kindly small town doctor. He was ruthless. He was clearly prepared to continue hiding behind the people of Mercy, despite the danger and hardship it brought them. He had a sharp intelligence and wasn't afraid to use it in his own defence. This was one of the things that made it so difficult for the Doctor to cope with him. Even without knowing the details of the Time War (which was cleverly left as a subtext for the long term viewer), Jex recognised the similarities between the two of them and was not prepared to allow the Doctor to get away with simply condemning Jex for things the Doctor himself had done or come close to doing. But the bottom line is that the entire drama of the story was driven by Jex's refusal to die for the good of the town, that he kills himself at the end, after the Doctor has found a resolution which allows him a chance of survival and saves the town, seemed to flow simply from the dramatic necessity that the Doctor's solution did not allow justice to Kahler-mas, only the open-ended possibility of justice at some point in the future. It was not dramatically tidy. I take the argument that actually the story was about Jex coming to the realisation that he needs to sacrifice himself for the greater good, but that wasn't really what I took away from the performance and that resolution is also trite.
I think A Town called Mercy ultimately failed. But it failed partly because it reached too high and thankfully, given there was a chance to fail really, really tastelessly here, it at least failed with dignity.
I was once on a Dr Who mailing list (I think the Jade Pagoda) where there was a long discussion about whether a Doctor Who book could or should ever attempt to set a story during the Nazi Holocaust. I think there was a general feeling of unease with the idea without people necessarily being able to pin down exactly why they felt it would be quite so hideously inappropriate. After all, it seemed wrong to suggest a Doctor Who story couldn't tackle a serious subject, and even if it obviously wasn't possible for the Doctor to somehow "fix" the Holocaust, there was no reason why a story couldn't engage with it.
I think A Town called Mercy illustrated how a Holocaust story would fail without, thankfully, doing anything so tasteless as setting itself at Auschwitz. A Doctor Who story has to have a dramatically satisfying resolution and these days it probably needs to come after 45 minutes (or 90 if you are lucky). War crimes have terrible and messy legacies that last for generations - as illustrated not only by the fact that the Holocaust is still a matter of political significance today, but also by South Africa, Northern Ireland and dozens of other places world wide currently in the aftermath of conflict and/or oppression. You can not cover the issues raised by such events and find a dramatically satisfying resolution in 45 minutes, because the only resolutions we know of are uncomfortable lingering compromises and allowing the passing of ages to gradually ease the immediacy of the horror.
A Town called Mercy did an excellent job of presenting the issues at stake. All the performances were strong and it had a clear focus, actors who could make the dilemma live, and a director who was prepared to give the actors space to do their work. I think it was
daniel_saunders who pointed out, though, that Kahler-Jex ultimately appears to kill himself merely because he has grown tired of the circular argument. Adrian Scarborough put in an excellent performance as Jex. He was believable both as a man who had committed hideous crimes in the name of the ends justifying the means, and as a kindly small town doctor. He was ruthless. He was clearly prepared to continue hiding behind the people of Mercy, despite the danger and hardship it brought them. He had a sharp intelligence and wasn't afraid to use it in his own defence. This was one of the things that made it so difficult for the Doctor to cope with him. Even without knowing the details of the Time War (which was cleverly left as a subtext for the long term viewer), Jex recognised the similarities between the two of them and was not prepared to allow the Doctor to get away with simply condemning Jex for things the Doctor himself had done or come close to doing. But the bottom line is that the entire drama of the story was driven by Jex's refusal to die for the good of the town, that he kills himself at the end, after the Doctor has found a resolution which allows him a chance of survival and saves the town, seemed to flow simply from the dramatic necessity that the Doctor's solution did not allow justice to Kahler-mas, only the open-ended possibility of justice at some point in the future. It was not dramatically tidy. I take the argument that actually the story was about Jex coming to the realisation that he needs to sacrifice himself for the greater good, but that wasn't really what I took away from the performance and that resolution is also trite.I think A Town called Mercy ultimately failed. But it failed partly because it reached too high and thankfully, given there was a chance to fail really, really tastelessly here, it at least failed with dignity.