| THE SHAKESPEARE CODE by Gareth Roberts |
| Story 24 Synopsis: The Doctor brings Martha to London, 1599, to uncover the mystery of William Shakespeare's lost play, Love's Labours Won. He meets Will in a tavern, where the playwright takes a shine to Martha. Suspicious deaths point to the involvement of witchcraft, and on questioning the builder of the Globe Theatre, the Doctor realises that the witches are in fact aliens, Carrionites, who plan to travel through in force to Earth during the performance of the play. The play goes on, and the Carrionites arrive, but the Doctor tells Shakespeare to improvise some words to banish them away again, which he does. Queen Elizabeth comes to visit, but reacts badly to seeing her enemy, the Doctor, so he and Martha rush back to the TARDIS. |
| Review:- Another brush with a major literary figure, another spiritual problem covering an alien invasion... why, it's The Unquiet Dead, again. Only not as good. On the plus side, Dean Lennox Kelly turned in the goods as Shakespeare, and the sets were rather fine. Using the real (alright, reconstructed) Globe Theatre made that vital difference, and there was a lot of decent dialogue, and the running gag about ownership of quotable lines was delivered well enough to pass. Martha got to again demonstrate her valuable contribution to the Doctor's travels, even if he is lumbered (or saddled, perhaps) with a continuing pang of loss for Rose. It's one little trait that had better be cut soon, or will drag the whole series down to Earth like a hot air balloon carrying an elephant. So what was the problem? Painting Shakespeare as the "most human human" is one thing, ranting on about his amazing unique intelligence, almost an equal to the Doctor (why invite a comparison?) is forgiveable, if nonetheless stupid. No, it falls down with the witches. What a tedious lot of drivel they were. The issue of whether magic works has been considered in the series before, and is usually passed off in terms of it being to do with aliens, and so it was here. But their basic sorcery of using voodoo was left unexplained, and their more considered efforts using words were so vague as to be negligible. Their rather slender motive for arriving at this time was because of Shakespeare, and though their plan to corrupt his play to achieve their aims was quite good, if silly, their defeat was totally awful. Shakespeare improvises on the spot, and then JK Rowling gets a big namecheck, as if presumably in 400 years time, her name will stand alongside Dickens and Shakespeare as great writers. Hogwash. So, a fun romp with a dicky heart... whilst there was much here to enjoy (and the Doctor's attitude to Bedlam was one of his better moments), the central problem ticked away all the time, and could never be addressed. And I keep comparing this to The Unquiet Dead, and it keeps losing in every department. Which is not really progress, is it? I'm sure Roberts could do better. I assume he may get a chance next series. For this to be his only story would be rather unrepresentative. |
| Disclaimer: I have watched this story. |