Thoughts on Mercy:

Spoiler
Show

Accents and Voice-over: Normally British actors do such a good job with accents that I never really care where the actor is from because they still sound wonderful. Hugh Laurie in particular is absolutely amazing both on Black Adder and on House and I never once question the nationality of the character.

The sheriff was good in this episode as were the "alien" characters (basically anyone who had a name instead of a description). The towns people though... I've never cringed or felt insulted at someone trying to "speak American" before. I know that the western genre isn't populated with people who have had much in the way of schooling or much concern for grammar... but that was annoying to the point of grating on me in every single scene. The worst part of it was that it wasn't consistent. The "average" people would talk as if they were in open rebellion of grammar and all it stood for while the Sheriff spoke cleanly, with the proper inflection, and didn't come off sounding like he'd been expelled from kindergarten for poor performance.

This was not something I enjoyed. I would have rather had all of the Americans speaking with cockney accents. Its a British show and I love listening to the various English accents anyway.

Voice over also didn't accomplish anything. It can be used well, this time it really felt out of no where unless they plan on going back to Mercy for the gunslinger to be of major importance later in the season. So far Moffat doesn't seem to use episodes written by his guest writers as major plot points, though they sometimes contribute to the finale, the important connecting scenes are in episodes he writes himself - likely so that he doesn't have to tell anyone what he's planning.

Keep-Out / Leave the bag in/ He shoots hats?: I loved the little bits of the Doctor just having fun with his genre. The Keep-Out sign was just plain silly, though I'm not sure why Amy and Rory would even bother noticing at this point, considering neither of them should have any expectation of the Doctor following instructions.

I loved the Doctor's bar scene, though I think it missed a small trick. I absolutely love it when a character like the Doctor plays into those conventions and then the show makes a point of throwing it back in a different direction.

In the Empty Child Doc: "It's Mauve and Dangerous."
Rose: "Mauve?"
Doc: "Universally recognized color for danger."
Rose: "What happened to Red?"
Doc: "Oh that's just humans, for everyone else it means camp. Oh the misunderstandings, all that singing and dancing."

I think having the Doctor saunter in and have either of the following happen would have added a nice punctuation to the scene (before continuing as before):
1) Rory gets all flustered and embarassed having tried to explain that the real world doesn't work like movies, only to have everyone act exactly like a movie and him looking on bewildered. (Arthur Darvil does that sort of thing very well and is a great comedic counterpoint to the silly).
2) The Doctor Saunters in and does a bad "Western" accent and person but nobody understands him until he speaks properly again.

The hat-shooting is one of the funnier memes in 11's run. When he got the hat with the bullet hole in it I half expected him to keep it and then have it be the same hat from last year's opening episode... then I remembered that this doctor has already lived through that doctor's life/death and that as wibbly/wobbly as the show can be they have yet to get that bizarre.

Alien Doctor: The green tattoo is distracting if only because it is implied to both be unique to the character and somehow significant of the character's race.

All in all I felt it a little too obvious early on where he was going, and a little too abrupt that he had his change of heart when he did. He went from hiding out and acting as though he genuinely felt he was a virtuous victim to noble self sacrifice. I would have liked it a bit better if his "I did what had to be done" bits were a little more trying to convince himself than trying to convince other people. - drawing out the episode a day or two so that you could have a scene with him crying at night or waking up after a nightmare would lead into the awesome conversation he had and make the morally grey areas but more poignant.

The Mother issue:

I agree with Curly, and I'm a guy. Actually I find that to be the overall theme with Moffat's Feminism. He writes Feminist "types" and presents them as though saying woman = strong or mother = special is the same as supporting women (Yes I know Moffat didn't write the episode, whitehouse did, but I don't believe that the show runner doesn't look over the script). I'm not a woman, and I still find it annoying and degrading to get that kind of rhetoric handed down when you could instead have someone who is a strong character regardless of their gender or someone who is special regardless of their parental status.

For all their "Damsel in Distress" moments, I think the Davies era companions did a better job at treating their gender as just a part of the person instead of a defining characteristic. There was a share of helpless/whiny men (brain boy from Dalek and the following episode, Mickey, Rattigen from season 4 two parter) Davies's personal trap was that the Doctor was special and the companion was there to motivate the doctor, often meaning that the companion's safety served as an obstacle for the doctor. This continued with Wilf and any number of temporary companions. I'd mention that everyone seems to be in love with the Doctor, as in acts like they'd be ready to jump him given an opportunity, even Jack, but Moffat's no better about that.

Susan the Horse: The only moment in the epsiode that got me to laugh out loud.

Preacher: His name is Joshua, its from the Bible. It means Deliverer.
Doctor: No it isn't, I speak horse. Its Susan, and he wants you to respect his life choices.

So much about that throwaway gag is hilarious to me. These are the moments of wit I watch Doctor Who for.

Doctor with a gun (10 or not so 10?): He had a gun, but he also had his angsty face on. He was ready to kill someone who had killed and harmed many innocent people before. He wasn't just going to kill him, he was going to stand there implacably and watch the person get killed because he was in his dark and angsty mode. He had a red-head female companion talk him down from being all angry and angsty, and told him he was like that because he traveled alone.

I think it was one of the moments were Smith's Doctor was the closest to 10s he's been in a long while. 10's whole "no guns" thing could have been handled a lot better. A big part of it was that he knew full well that he wouldn't need them, that he was more than capable of wiping out who species without using traditional weapons. As is often pointed out 10 wasn't a pacifist, not nearly as much as he liked to pretend. He was an angry and vengful god, but he wanted to make his adversary choose death. That was how 10 moralized / rationalized, his guilt away. At the end of his run it was catching up to him. Now we've got 11 still running from the same guilt.

Its a fun story, but unless it ends with the Valyard I don't see them being able to find a resolution for it anywhere and it keeps being a subtler point of the Doctor's character.

Also the Doctor's own: Justice doesn't work like that. You don't get to choose your punishment... that came off as hipocracy since the Doctor's been running from his guilt for a long time now.

Weight of the souls: Very nice bit of conversation there, really liked that part of the episode. Not much to say other than this was very good. I'd have liked a little more decent from righteous pride to acceptance of his sins for Jex, but the death of Issac was a great catalyst for this scene.

The plan: That was hilarious and wonderfully Doctor-ish. Seriously they could have done more with that and I'd have been very happy.

Resolution: Not sure how they could have ended it better, it just felt a bit abrupt to me.

Overall thoughts- A good episode, not great, not bad. Nothing on part with Dinosaurs (Awesome episodes with an iffy Neffie). Not as enjoyable while watching as Asylum, but far more rewarding to have watched once your brain starts thinking about it.

Last thought: Please never do an American episode again if the accents are going to be like that. The New York accents in Daleks of Manhattan were also sterotyped, but not as obnoxious. We can do those, but please no more "Is you gonna get us dead".