February 10: "The Shakespeare Code"

And so this year's celebrity historical involves one William Shakespeare -- at a point before the Doctor ever met him it seems (in Shakespeare's personal timeline, that is -- see, among others, City of Death and The Mark of the Rani for suggestions that the Doctor has met Shakespeare before, albeit after 1599¹⁸⁴).  It's also Martha's first trip in the TARDIS, and you can tell that writer Gareth Roberts (in his first official Doctor Who televised script -- he'd previously done "Attack of the Graske" and a number of the TARDISodes last series, but nothing that went out as part of the main series) is having a great time with it:

MARTHA: But are we safe?  I mean, can we move around and stuff?
DOCTOR: Of course we can.  Why do you ask?
MARTHA: It's like in the films.  You step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race.
DOCTOR: Tell you what then, don't step on any butterflies.  What have butterflies ever done to you?
MARTHA: What if, I don't know, what if I kill my grandfather?
DOCTOR: Are you planning to?
MARTHA: No.
DOCTOR: Well, then.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Shakespeare Code)

Martha's worries about her race are also shrugged off: "Just walk about like you own the place," the Doctor tells her.  "Works for me."  Easy for him to say, he looks like a white man.  The bit about there being black people in Elizabethan England is historically accurate, though.  What's probably less accurate is how no one makes any sort of comment about Martha's race (beyond Shakespeare referring to her as a "Dark Lady", which is actually a reference to his sonnets) or about the strange clothing she's wearing (again, one passing comment from Shakespeare and that's it).  But I suppose there's only so much you can fit in in 45 minutes and Roberts in interested in other things.

William Shakespeare on the Globe stage after a performance of
Love's Labour's Lost. ("The Shakespeare Code") ©BBC

Those other things include witchcraft, with three witches (actually aliens, but it hardly matters) using their witchcraft to get Shakespeare to free their fellow witches, and Shakespeare himself, who's shown to be keenly intelligent (note how he's not fooled by the psychic paper when Martha is) and in love with life -- the way he yells at the audience in the beginning of the episode ("Shut your big fat mouths!") being a prime example.  Dean Lennox Kelly does a fine job of presenting Shakespeare as a person, rather than just a caricature.  Even if he's less bald than we might expect.

But the idea behind "The Shakespeare Code" is that words have power, and that thus Shakespeare has the power to bring the Carrionites back from where the Eternals (see Enlightenment and a brief mention in "Army of Ghosts") banished them at the beginning of time.  It's a fun script, with lots of witch elements (including the now-standard three witches gathered around a cauldron) and some mysterious deaths, like that of the Master of the Revels, who appears to have drowned in the middle of a dry street.  ("I've never seen a death like it," says the Doctor, who seems to have forgotten all about the death of Professor Kettering in The Mind of Evil -- and if Roberts is enough of a fanboy to slip one of David Whitaker's lines from The Crusade into the "text" for Love's Labour's Won ("The eye should have contentment where it rests"), you'd think he would have remembered this.)  The way the Doctor and Martha keep making Shakespeare references is also cute, particularly since they do play with it a little (such as the reference to Henry V: "Wait a minute, that's one of mine").

But yes, witches and Shakespeare and genuine lost Shakespearean plays; it's a fun script, and even when it's showing us genuinely alien moments (such as the trip to Bethlem Hospital) it moves along.  There are parts to quibble over (such as the Doctor being an oblivious bastard to Martha while they're sharing a bed: "No, there's something I'm missing, Martha.  Something really close, staring me right in the face and I can't see it.  Rose'd know."  (Ass.  Bet she wouldn't, anyway)), and I'm of two minds about the Harry Potter references: on the one hand I find it a bit crass to put them in the same category as Shakespeare, but it does get across the point of the popularity of Shakespeare's works in contemporary times and helps make the connection for younger audience members.  (That said, the "Expelliarmus" bit is a bit too far.)  It does a good job of keeping the viewer entertained, with a lot of energy and deftness on display, and it's not afraid to play with its subject a little, which makes him seem more human and alive, and thus more relatable.  "The Shakespeare Code" gives us Doctor Who in confident control, and it's hard not to join in with the fun.







¹⁸⁴ Strictly speaking, they've screwed up the year, as Love's Labour's Won is mentioned in a book dated 1598.  But never mind.