Previously: Judoon loose upon the moon. If you didn’t hear David Tennant’s accent in your head when you read that, you’re doing it wrong.
—
The Shakespeare Code
Kirsti: London, 1599. A guy with a terrible hair cut plays the lute and sings to a woman leaning out of her window. It’s all very Romeo and Juliet. She looks incredibly familiar, and that’s because she’s Blanche Ingram from the BBC’s 2006 version of Jane Eyre! (M: AHHH!) She also played Caroline Bingley in Lost in Austen. (M: Less exciting.) She informs him that after his amazing singing she’s totally DTF and he rushes upstairs.
When he gets to her room, he’s weirded out to see that it’s full of creepy magical looking stuff. She kisses him, and turns into a crone with pointy teeth. He freaks. She gestures and two other crone-faced witches rush forward. They cackle as they surround him, and tear him to shreds. Witchy Juliet looks directly into the camera and says “Soon, at the hour of woven words, we shall rise again, and this fleeting Earth will perish!” She cackles loudly.
DOO WEE OOO!
After the credits, the TARDIS is still bouncing all over the place. Martha demands to know the science behind time travel, but the Doctor says that spoils all the fun. (M: We see you, show.) They land and he rushes her to the door, insisting that she only gets one trip. He stops at the door, and says it’s a brave new world outside. She asks where they are, and he throws the door open. She bites her lip and heads outside.
She flails excitedly about the Elizabethan scene outside, and wants to know when they are. The Doctor drags her back as a woman empties a chamberpot from a window above, and says that they’re clearly before the invention of the toilet. Martha doesn’t care because she’s seen worse on late shifts in the ER. She asks about paradoxes, and he has zero fucks to give.
Marines: This is clearly not an instructive trip. Look, don’t touch, no questions.
K: Breaking in a new companion is hard. And at this point, he has literally no plans for her to actually BE a companion. It’s a one off thing, in his mind…
He tells her that they’re in London in 1599, and Martha immediately asks if it’s safe for her to be there, on account of not being white. Because being a slave isn’t high on her list of priorities. A+ to the writers for including this. The Doctor tells her to just walk around like she owns the place because it works for him. Uh, yeah. You’re a dude. And white.
Mari: BIG WORD. It’s essentially just a hand wave at the idea of race + time traveling, but I do appreciate that they least acknowledge it but don’t stop Martha from going on this adventure.
K: TRUTH.
He goes on to tell her that Elizabethan England isn’t that different to the twenty first century. There’s recycling and global warming and people of colour. WOO. Suddenly, he realises where in London they are and runs off, dragging Martha behind him. They come out next to the Globe Theatre, and Martha’s face lights up in excitement when the Doctor says that Shakespeare’s in there. They head off towards the theatre.
Cut inside, where the cast are taking their bows as the crowd applauds. Incidentally, if you ever get the chance to go to a performance at the Globe, DO IT. It’s amazing. Anyway, Martha flails some more and shouts “AUTHOR!!“. People around her take up the call. Shakespeare comes out on stage with a flourish and waves to the crowd, which includes Witchy Juliet. She pulls a poppet out of her bag.
The Doctor gushes about how much of a genius Shakespeare is and how he’s such an amazing speaker and always chooses brilliant words. “Aaaaah, shut your big fat mouths!” Shakespeare shouts. The Doctor looks heartbroken. Martha snarks that you shouldn’t meet your heroes.
As the crowd files out, Martha says she’s never heard of Love’s Labour’s Won. The Doctor says it’s the lost play and it doesn’t exist. It’s mentioned in lists of his plays but that’s it. No one knows anything about it. Martha suggests that they record it and sell the tape for a bajillion dollars when they get home. The Doctor gives her disapproving face. (M: Don’t end up with a brain window, girl.) She asks why the play disappeared in the first place, and he reluctantly says they can stay and find out.
Later, at a pub, Shakespeare’s drinking with the actors who inform him that they’re totally not ready to do Love’s Labour’s Won and point out that he hasn’t finished writing it yet. The servant girl cleaning behind them is Witchy Juliet. The Doctor bursts in, and Shakespeare’s all “EW, FANS” until he spots Martha. “Hey nonny nonny!” he says. He tells the actors to GTFO and Martha to sit next to him. The bar wench eyerolls that he’s found his new muse.
Shakespeare flirts with Martha, and the Doctor looks grossed out. He whips out his psychic paper and introduces himself as Sir Doctor of TARDIS. Shakespeare’s all “LOL NOPE, that paper’s blank.” The Doctor grins that this proves Shakespeare’s a genius. Shakespeare turns his attention back to Martha, calling her all kinds of moderately racist names. The Doctor eyerolls and says “Er, Martha’s from a far-off land. Freedonia.”
Mari: And the Doctor was making fun of Shakespeare’s improvisation.
K: Pot, meet kettle.
Just then, a tall guy with a straggly red beard bursts in and demands a copy of the script for the new play because he’s the Master of the Revels and everything has to go through him. Shakespeare says he’ll have to send the script round in the morning, but this is deemed unacceptable. Straggly Beard says the play can’t possibly be performed and he’s going to get a banning order. Witchy Juliet intentionally bumps into him on his way out, and she steals a chunk of his hair.
She pulls out a poppet, and mutters that someone wants to stop the performance. Across town, the other witches insist that the performance must go ahead. Witchy Juliet tells them to chant with her. The three of them mutter a spell, and she plunges the poppet into a bucket of water. Straggly Beard, walking down a street alone, starts coughing up water.
Back up in the pub, Martha says nonchalantly that she thought there might be a more mysterious explanation as to why Love’s Labour’s Won wasn’t performed. Just then, there’s a scream from outside. All three of them rush out past Witchy Juliet, who’s looking smug. In the yard below, Straggly Beard is vomiting up water. The Doctor and Martha rush over to help him, but then just stand there watching. It’s…odd. The witches chant about stopping the heart, and Witchy Juliet stabs the poppet with a pin and rips its head off. Straggly Beard drops dead.
Mari: Martha says something about how the heart won’t start up, but she doesn’t try anything of the sort? Like for real. They just kneel near this dude and let bad things happen.
K: Totally weird, right??
Martha goes to do CPR, and water pours out of his mouth. The Doctor’s weirded out because Straggly Beard drowned on dry land. Bitch, please. We’ve already done that on Supernatural. (M: Two times, no? Precious little Supernatural.) (K: I was thinking of Red Sky at Night, but yes, it also happened in season 1…) He tells the bar wench that it was an imbalance of the humours. Martha looks suspiciously at Witchy Juliet, who’s just rushed downstairs. The Doctor says they should call a constable, and Witchy Juliet says she’ll do it. She smiles smugly as she turns away.
Martha wants to know why the Doctor said it was an imbalance of humours, and the Doctor says it’s because everyone would freak out if they knew the truth: it’s witchcraft. Witch Central. The other witches give Witchy Juliet a potion to make Shakespeare write the play, and they all cackle. Back at the pub, the bar wench says she’s got a room across the hall for Martha and the Doctor. Shakespeare’s too busy being weirded out by the events of the evening, and wants to know more about Freedonia, where women of colour can be doctors. “Where a woman can do anything she likes!” Martha says. I love her. (M: So far, so good.)
Shakespeare asks some more questions about the Doctor and gets non-answers in reply. Martha announces that she’s going to bed. Shakespeare says he should get back to work, but tomorrow he wants answers to his questions. “All the world’s a stage…” the Doctor says, and Shakespeare decides that he might use that. The Doctor smirks a little and leaves him to it.
In their room, Martha points out that she hasn’t even got a toothbrush. The Doctor pulls one from his pocket. Martha comments on the fact that there’s only one bed, and there’s a slight hint of Eyebrows of Innuendo about it. The Doctor flops down on the bed grumpily. Martha says that the magic and witches thing is all a bit Harry Potter, and HOLY SHIT THIS EPISODE AIRED BEFORE DEATHLY HALLOWS CAME OUT because the Doctor’s answer is “Wait till you read book seven. Oh, I cried…” So did we all, Doctor. So did we all.
Mari: I love that that was a given. Safe way to predict the future? THE DEATHLY HALLOWS WILL MAKE US CRY.
K: I mean, she’d killed Sirius and Dumbledore. Crying was a safe bet.
He goes on to say that magic isn’t real. This looks like witchcraft, but it isn’t. He bitchily asks Martha if she’s going to just stand there all night, and she lies down on the bed, asking him to budge up a bit. It’s the grumpiest budge in history:
Mari: He’s being so petulant, but still, my heart hurts for him and having lost a partner in crime.
K: YUP.
Outside, Witchy Juliet stares up at Shakespeare’s window. Then she flies up there, opens the window, and pulls the stopper out of the potion. A green wisp comes out, and she blows it in Shakespeare’s direction. It flies up his nose – kind of like demon smoke in Supernatural, except fluoro green – and he goes crosseyed before passing out on the desk. Witchy Juliet lifts a marionette of Shakespeare and mutters a spell. She twitches the marionette, and Shakespeare sits bolt upright. She twitches it again, and he starts writing.
Across the hall, Martha’s asleep while the Doctor stares mopily at the ceiling. Shakespeare scribbles “finis” and slumps to the table. Witchy Juliet smiles smugly just as Bar Wench walks in to say that she’s finished cleaning. Witchy Juliet witches out (it’s like vamping out, but not) and grabs the broomstick, declaring that Bar Wench won’t say another thing. Bar Wench screams. The Doctor leaps out of bed and runs towards the screaming. Martha wakes and scrambles after him. They reach Shakespeare’s room just as he wakes groggily and asks what happened. Bar Wench is dead on the floor. Martha rushes to the window and sees Witchy Juliet flying away, cackling.
The next morning, they discuss how Bar Wench died of fright, and Shakespeare’s baffled by it. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light…” the Doctor says. Shakespeare wants to use it, but LOL NOPE. It’s someone else’s (‘sup, Dylan Thomas?). Martha points out that both victims were connected to Shakespeare, and he’s written about witches. He’s surprised by this because Macbeth wasn’t written until about 1606. Awkward. He says that the architect of the Globe kept talking about witches, and the Doctor has a brainwave. He drags them off to the theatre.
At the Globe, the Doctor wibbles about it having fourteen sides. I’m actually reading a biography of Shakespeare at the moment, and it’s because Tudor carpenters didn’t know how to curve wood. So they just did short, straight walls. (M: That’s wonderfully simple.) Aaaaaaanyway, Martha points out that there are fourteen lines in a sonnet, and the Doctor realises that words are magical in a theatre and you can change people’s lives and minds forever, just with words.
The Doctor wants to speak to the architect, who’s in Bedlam. He rushes off, Martha and Shakespeare trailing behind him. A couple of actors walk in as they leave, and Shakespeare hands them the finished script, telling them to be super great in case the Queen turns up. As they walk, Shakespeare flirts with Martha some more. She shuts him down, saying she knows about his wife. He gives zero fucks.
The Doctor says they can all flirt later, and Shakespeare asks if that’s a promise, giving him Eyebrows of Innuendo. “Oh, fifty seven academics just punched the air. Now move!” the Doctor yells.
Mari: Shakespeare’s 57th sonnet is one of many that some scholars think is homoerotic. Thanks Wikipedia!
K: Seriously, what did we do before Wikipedia existed?!
Back at the Globe, the actors agree that sequels are never as good as the original, and discuss how crappy the last scene is. One guy doesn’t care because he gets centre stage during that speech. He walks to the middle of the stage and runs through it. As he speaks, a wind springs up out of nowhere. The speech seems to involve a bunch of coordinates. The witches panic, but Witchy Juliet assures them it’s only a rehearsal. The actor finishes his speech, and a demon-y looking ghosty thing appears in mid-air. It shrieks, then vanishes. The actors agree to never speak of this again.
Cut to Bedlam. Martha’s grossed out by the treatment of mentally ill people, and says Shakespeare should know better on account of being a genius. Shakespeare says he went mad when his son died, and fear of Bedlam set him straight so it serves its purpose. But it made him think of how fleeting everything is in life. “To be or not to be…” he mutters. The Doctor tells him to write it down, but Shakespeare thinks it might be a bit pretentious. LOL.
They head in to see the architect. The Doctor touches him on the shoulder, and his head snaps up. He stares at the Doctor, his eyes wild. Elsewhere, Witchy Juliet’s spidey sense are tingling. She stares into the cauldron and sees the Doctor’s face. She realises that he was at the pub with Shakespeare, and says that he’s something new. The other witches panic. The Doctor presses his hands to the architect’s face and asks him to go back into the past and tell them what happened.
Witchy Juliet demands to know who the Doctor is and where he comes from. She orders one of the other witches to transport herself and deal with the Doctor. The architect tells the Doctor that the witches whispered to him at night and made him build the Globe to their designs, ensuring that there were 14 walls. Then they broke his wits. The Doctor asks where he saw the witches, and he replies “All Hallowes Street“.
Just then, the witch appears beside them. “Too many words,” she says. The Doctor jumps back. She presses a finger to the architect’s chest and he dies. The Doctor is outraged. The witch asks who wants to be next, and the other witches cackle. Martha screams for the warden to let them out. The Doctor steps forward and volunteers. Shakespeare asks if he can stop her. “No mortal has power over me!” the witch shrieks. But the Doctor realises there’s a power in words.
He starts word vomiting as he thinks through their possible identities, joining dots as he goes. The number 14 is what gives it away. “Creature, I name you Carrionite!” he yells. The witch shrieks and vanishes. Martha wants to know what the fuck just happened. The Doctor says that it’s old magic, a different kind of science that uses words instead of numbers. Words that lead to the end of the world. (M: Just nod your head and go with it.)
Back at Witch Central, the witch who vanished is gasping for air. She manages to get out that the Doctor knows who they are. Witchy Juliet says she’s going to murder his face off, and sends the other two off to the Globe to make final preparations. In Shakespeare’s room, the Doctor info-dumps: Carrionites were around at the start of the universe, then vanished mysteriously. They want to create a world of bones and blood and magic on Earth. Martha wants to know how, and the Doctor looks at Shakespeare.
Shakespeare insists he’s done nothing but finish the play. The Doctor asks what happens at the end, and Shakespeare says it’s all business as usual except for the last few lines. Which he has no memory of writing. The Doctor realises that they’re using him and the play as a weapon. The Globe will amplify everything. Speaking of the Globe, the play is starting. The crowd cheers as the prologue ends. The camera pans up and we see the two witches sitting in an upper box.
The Doctor locates All Hallowes Street on a map, and says he and Martha will head there while Shakespeare heads to the Globe to stop the play. Shakespeare gushes about how great it is to not be the cleverest person around for a change, and the Doctor rushes out yelling “Once more unto the breach!“. Shakespeare grins when he realises it’s one of his lines.
At the Globe, the play continues. The witches look into a glowing ball that’s full of black dots swirling around and tell their sisters to be patient. Then Shakespeare bursts out on stage and yells that the performance has to stop and that everyone will get a refund. One of the witches pulls out the poppet and pokes it. He collapses on the stage. One of the actors whispers to other cast members to drag Shakespeare off the stage. Someone ad libs a line, and the audience cheer.
Over on All Hallowes Street, Martha’s confused because she’s living proof that the world didn’t end in 1599. The Doctor sighs and says that it’s like Back to the Future – Marty went back, changed history, and started to fade away. They need to stop that happening here. They try to work out which house it is when the door of one house creaks open by itself. “Make that WITCH house!” the Doctor mutters. They head inside.
Mari: Self-opening doors always give it away, past, present or future.
K: Upstairs, Witchy Juliet is waiting for them. Martha says she’ll take care of it, and names her as a Carrionite. Nothing happens. Witchy Juliet laughs that it only works once, then pokes her finger at Martha and calls her by name. Martha collapses. Witchy Juliet sad pandas, because Martha being out of her own time means she’s only sleeping, not dead. She tries her trick on the Doctor, but nothing happens on account of Doctor isn’t really his name.
Then she cocks her head to one side, and says that there’s still a name with power over him, a name that’s causing his heart to grow cold: Rose. “Oh, big mistake. Because that name keeps me fighting!” he snaps.
The Doctor says they have to get through him first. Witchy Juliet is totally down with that because the Doctor’s hot. She pulls out a chunk of his hair, then flies backwards out the window when he tries to grab it from her. She pulls out a poppet, which the Doctor calls “a DNA replication module“, winds his hair around it and stabs it in the chest. The Doctor collapses on the floor. Witchy Juliet cackles and flies away.
Martha wakes and scrambles over to the Doctor, who’s pretending to be dead. He leaps up, then doubles over in pain because only one heart is working and he doesn’t know how people cope. She hits him in the chest and on the back to get his second heart started, and he rushes off into the night, Martha trailing after him.
Mari: Shots for two hearts saving the day!
K: It’s amazing how much that happens.
At the Globe, Witchy Juliet joins the other witches and says the Doctor’s dead. The play draws to a close, and wind springs up in the theatre. The witches cackle excitedly. A dark pink swirl rises over the theatre as Martha and the Doctor run towards it. Inside, the audience scream as the doors slam shut. The Doctor finds Shakespeare and yells at him for not stopping the play. Shakespeare says vaguely that he hit his head. The Doctor eyerolls and Martha drags Shakespeare along after them.
Up in their box, the three witches chant “Now begins the millennium of blood!” and cackle some more. They raise their glowing globe towards the sky. The Doctor runs out on stage, and Witchy Juliet is hella pissed that he’s alive, but says he can watch the world burn. A pink light shoots out of the globe, and a swirl of black follows it. The air fills with Carrionites. It’s like the Wizard of Oz en masse. The witches cackle and people scream.
The Doctor grabs Shakespeare and drags him to the front of the stage, telling him to reverse it with his words. He’s a genius, and he needs to pick whatever words feel right. He improvises, and the witches shriek about words of power. The Doctor gives him the coordinates to finish it, but he can’t think of a rhyme for “Banished like a tinker’s cuss“. Martha yells out “EXPELLIARMUS!“, and Shakespeare adds it in. “Good old J.K!” yells the Doctor with a grin.
Mari: Oh goodness, I giggled hard. This is was so fun.
K: I can’t stop staring at that last gif. David Tennant is like 60% hair and 40% teeth.
The Carrionites are consumed by the pink light in the sky, and all the copies of Love’s Labour’s Won go with it. The portal over the Globe closes, and the audience gasp before slowly starting a rousing round of applause. Martha and Shakespeare bow. The Doctor, meanwhile, has rushed up to the private box. He finds the glowy orb, with the three witches trapped inside it.
The next day, Martha and Shakespeare are exchanging jokes. Neither understands the others. Shakespeare goes to kiss her, and Martha’s all “Dude, we just met. Also, your breath is rank.” (M: I don’t think I could stand it, even for a kiss with Shakespeare.) The Doctor walks in wearing a ruff and carrying a cow skull. He gives the ruff to Shakespeare as a neck brace, and says it suits him so maybe he should keep it. Shakespeare pines for his lost play, and the Doctor suggests that he not write it up again because the words are too powerful.
Shakespeare says he’s got new ideas, and that it’s time to write about fathers and sons, in honour of his son, Hamnet (seriously). The Doctor says they need to go, and that he has an attic in the TARDIS where the witches can scream for all eternity in their glow ball. Shakespeare’s all “Cool, so you’re going to travel in time and take Martha back to the future?”. The Doctor’s taken aback, but Shakespeare insists that it’s not hard to work out.
Shakespeare turns to Martha and says he’ll bid her farewell with a new sonnet for “my dark lady“. He goes through the first few lines of Sonnet 18, and the Doctor makes ridiculously hilarious facial expressions in the background.
The Doctor’s face lights up when Elizabeth I walks in. But she takes one look at him and shrieks “My sworn enemy!“. That starts him off on a Donna-just-appeared-in-the-TARDIS round of “What?“s. Martha yells at him to run. They sprint towards the TARDIS as Shakespeare laughs. As guards chase them, Martha asks what the Doctor did to piss off the Queen. He says they’ve never even met, but that’s the fun of time travel. He ducks inside the TARDIS and an arrow slams into the door as we fade to black.
I really like this episode. Sure, the Doctor’s kind of a dick. But I think a lot of season 3 is him mourning Rose’s loss, and this episode shows that really strongly. I love how readily Martha adapts to travelling in time, that she calls bullshit on things, that she saves the day with freaking Harry Potter. And while the Carrionites aren’t the greatest villains ever, they were definitely perfect for a Shakespeare themed episode. So yeah. This one’s a win for me.
Mari: More that an outright win, this is more of a shallow good time to me. It’s just fun. It’s not a very deep look at Shakespeare or anything, but the jokes fly out pretty quickly and all the references to Shakespeare are wonderful. Martha shines here again. The show is being very thoughtful about setting her up as her own companion and still inserting things in here so that we know Rose is gone but not forgotten. I like that.
I don’t even know what the witches are about. I just don’t.
Next time on Doctor Who: The Doctor takes Martha to New Earth, where he and Rose went on their first adventure in S03 E03 – Gridlock.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
