The series picks back up with Rory and Amy's status as the Doctor's companions in an awkward place. Technically, they're flying around with him on some of his adventures, but the series makes it clear that his visits come few and far between from the Pond's linear time perspective.
The third episode in series seven is "A Town Called Mercy." Even compared to "Dinosaurs'" relative light weight, this one is complete filler. That's not to say it wasn't fun, but the story was more of an excuse to get the Doctor into the Old West than anything else. That being said, a cowboy hat is way cooler than a fez, in my humble opinion.
The episode, which featured a cyborg bounty hunter tracking a reformed alien war criminal, had its fair share of nuance, but overall, probably won't have much of an effect on the story at large. It reminded me a lot of the "happily ever after" endings of many of the earlier season episodes, where a monster of the week-esque story was neatly wrapped up by the Doctor by the end. That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing that cyborg pop up again in a future episode.
Next up is "The Power of Three." It focuses on Amy and Rory's growing feeling that they cannot split their identity between their normal life and "Doctor Life." In a bit of a reversal, the Doctor finds himself stuck on Earth, living a "Pond Life," after the appearance of billions of mysterious black cubes. After an entire year of doing nothing, the cubes suddenly activate and immediately kill a third of the human population. As it turns out, the cubes belong to the Shakri, self-proclaimed "pest-controllers," who believe humanity will become a future threat.
Through some pseudo-science mumbo jumbo, the Doctor is able to reverse the deaths the cubes caused, and destroy the Shakri control ship. At the end of the episode, Brian is able to convince the Doctor to bring Rory and Amy along again as "full-time" companions. However, as we'll soon see, this reunion didn't last long.