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The Shakespeare Code Format Reviewed: TV Review The Shakespeare Code< continues the third series of the new television adventures of Doctor Who. It marks the first trip in the TARDIS of new assistant Martha Jones. 'First trip' stories are often the Doctor showing off, and in essence this one is no different, as in it we visit William Shakespeare. For her trip in the TARDIS, The Doctor takes Martha back to the time of Shakespeare, and they watch a performance of 'Loves Labours Lost'. After the show, The Doctor tracks Shakespeare down and discovers that he is writing a sequel, 'Loves Labours Won', which has always been rumoured to be Shakespeares lost play. Meanwhile, some mysterious happenings are surrounding three women, who are actually aliens bidding to use a Shakespeare play to free their kind. The witches, Carrionites, succeed in adding their incantation to Loves Labours Won, and are only defeated by a virtuoso piece of improvisation from Shakespeare himself, thus trapping all the Carrionites in their virttual jail. The Shakespeare Code introduces science fiction and fantasy into the time and world of William Shakespeare. Here we have what are apparantly witches, but are in fact aliens called Carionites. We are treated to an explanation that words can be used instead of numbers to manipulate the world around us. In the human sphere, mathematics does kind of dominate our destiny, so this isn't a massive leap of faith. The adversaries themselves are also quite believable, if you consider the beauty of Doctor Who that is to take facts from history and put them into a science fiction context. In this case there are two historical features taken, the existence of witches and Shakespeares lost play. Both are integrated well, although I think the makeup of the witches was a bit too much. Freema Agyeman takes her first trip in the TARDIS as Martha Jones here, and does a very good job. I really like her as a character, and an actor, but am not sure she really lives up to the tag of being a modern day medical Doctor though, yet. David Tennant is improving as the Doctor. Having rewatched his first series, I became less impressed with his acting. He is starting to calm down though. I think he's just a little too young to play the part really. Of the guest cast, the best performers are Dean Lennox Kelly as Shakespeare and Christina Cole as Lillith. Cole gives a strong performance in a slightly odd role, and Lennox Kelly breathes a very different life into the percieved image of Shakepeare. Certainly a very interesting direction for the character to have taken, and a very bold casting move, but it wasn't entirely out of place, although it was a very modern portrayal of the bard. The Shakespeare Code is yet another example of the beauty of Doctor Who, which is taking either established or rumoured events in established Earth history and adding a science fiction twist. Here, the rumour of a lost Shakespeare play was too much to resist, and The Shakespeare Code was the result. The biggest problem to a certain degree with this story is its similarity to the Christopher Eccleston story The Unquiet Dead. Substitute Shakespeare for Dickens and Carrionites for the Gelth and it is essentially the same story. When you consider this, you also have to think whether this is a better story or not, and unfortunately it isn't. The Shakespeare Code is a decent enough story, and pretty well realised in the show. It suffers though from being essentially the same story as the much lauded Eccleston story The Unquiet Dead. Whist The Shakespeare Code is a decent story in its own right, it isn't as good as The Unquiet Dead so willbe less remembered. Rating:  |