Reaction Post: The Shakespeare Code
Welcome to the reaction post for Doctor Who: series 3 episode 2 - The Shakespeare Code. My full-fledged review will appear after this episode airs in the U.S.
Spoiler warning!
Okay, to begin with I just have to say…Shakespeare! Shakespeare having a wee bit of a flirt with The Doctor, no less. Yes, that is the part at which I started laughing so hard that my husband had to pause the program. I explained to him what I was laughing about, and then we restarted the episode. 57 Academics. *giggle* (I should mention that the Globe theater is just beautiful in person. When I was in school we ran a couple of Shakespeare read-athons to help pay for the construction of the new Globe. I saw an all male production of Julius Caesar there when I was in London. Okay, back to the episode.) This time we had another baddie that looked at The Doctor and saw the darkness within him. I wonder if this will be a theme this year? As soon as the naming theme began with The Doctor naming the Carrionite, I began waiting for someone to try and name The Doctor. Nice try, Lilith. Perhaps we will learn The Doctor’s real name someday, but it won’t be today. And really dumb to mention Rose to him.
There are just so many little things to talk about this time! Shakespeare was fabulous. I loved that he not only remained unaffected by the psychic paper, but he noticed the Doctor’s “old eyes” and even figured out where he and Martha were from. This was sort of like the Dickens episode, but more so, what with all of the lines they were throwing about. And The Doctor didn’t save the day this time. He had Shakespeare do it. (Does it occur to anyone else that the Doctor must have the weirdest “attic” in the TARDIS? What else does he keep in there besides Carrionites, and maybe the taped over last resting place of The Wire?)
Martha held her own pretty well, especially for a first adventure. She even came up with the end of the “spell.” I am very curious to see how she ends up staying on. Face of Boe next week!
Doctor Who, The Shakespeare Code, Shakespeare, The Doctor, TARDIS
April 9th, 2007 at 5:25 am
Liked it a lot - probably my favorite of the 3 “historicals” of the modern era. May be a bit too pop-culture and self-referential for some (I’m thinking of the H.P. refs.) And gave only the barest lip service to a scientific explanation for the magic seen, which comes awfully close to violating the Unwritten Rules of Doctor Who.
Enjoying Martha Jones, but I’d like to see a multi-Companion setup again.
Definitely looking forward to another visit with the Face of Boe, and an apparently “Fifth Element” influenced New New York.
April 11th, 2007 at 7:00 am
This was a good episode but nowhere near as excellent as SMITH AND JONES.
What made this episode problematic and, to be honest, a complete joke was the terrible prosthetic work on the witches.
If ever there was a time when the makeup F/X crew could have taken a holiday it was now.
These ladies DID NOT need to be made up to look like the stereotype Witch that we see in Halloween Costume Shops.
Looking like they were wearing cheap masks, the Witches lowered the calibre of the show to a cheese-fest and inherently removed any fear factor the Witches could have had.
I could not take them seriously with cheesy face-makeup.
In the classic Doctor Who we were often forced to imagine that humans were aliens (example: the slug-like narrative description of the Androgums in The Two Doctors was reduced to the televised presentation of humans with orange eyebrows ).
So in this case, makeup should have been left off the faces and the actresses simply allowed to act out the character of a Witch. The older ones could have simply been bona-fide elderly ladies with shawls, stringy hair and a wart or two.
Their impact would have been much more effective. Think about how eerie the younger one was when we saw her without the cheesy make-up.
Ah well, there’s always bound to be a sloppy episode or two.
But its a shame really since the concept behind the episode was really quite impressive.
And the moment with the Doctor and Martha in bed was SPECTACULAR drama, rife with emotional tension. There was so much depth of character revealed when the Doctoor says: “I feel like I’m missing something…. like its staring me right in the face…” as Martha is staring at him right in the face.
Talk about foreshadowing the exploration of the Doctor’s need for love!
Fantastic!
– little stevie
April 17th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Eric J I’m glad you liked this one. For once, we agree.
Wow, little stevie, thanks for your review! I personally was annoyed by the witch on the left. Doomfinger didn’t bug me so much, for some reason.
April 17th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
oh, i loved the shakespeare code. dean lennox kelley plays a brilliant shakespeare. and i guess i bought into the witches, i didn’t even notice whether the prosthetics were any good.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:31 am
drow, I have to agree with you about Shakespeare. Dean Lennox Kelley did a fabulous job.
July 13th, 2007 at 12:09 am
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