Recap: Doctor Who "The Shakespeare Code"

Now that's a 2007 episode title if ever I saw one! According to David Tennant's video diary, the working title was "Theatre of Doom," which I guess riffs on the second Indiana Jones film, rather than 2006's then-culturally-relevant The Da Vinci Code.

That's like if, next year, they end up giving Jodie Whittaker an episode called "War for the Planet of the Ood," or "Time Wars: The Last Time Lord."

Also, I would love it to no end if there were an episode called "War for the Planet of the Ood."

We open up in fair London. This is to be expected from the early years of the Revived Series, but this time, the year is 1599. Sometime this year, Oliver Cromwell will be born, Cristofano Malvezzi will die, and Pompeii will be rediscovered, a scant 1520 years after Volcano Day. But Volcano Day is a story for next season. At this moment, a young man with a lute is serenading a comely young maiden (Christina Cole) who observes him from her second-floor window as he describes her beauty through song.

"The manner in which yond buttocks doth move, Nay, I am able to partake no more."

"I has't to cease what I am doing so I may pull myself up closer to her."

"I try to find words to describe this wench in manner not disrespectful to her."

"Damn, girl. Forsooth, thou art a sexy bitch."

Once ol' Romeo here completes his song, his fair maiden gives her opinion on his tunes.

Woman: "Such sweet music shows your blood to be afire."

Translation: I take that song as evidence of your passion.

Woman: "Why wait we on stale custom for consummation?"

Translation: Let us have the most premarital of sex.

Man: "Oh, yes! Tonight's the night!"

I don't think that needs any translating.

Excitedly, the man heads inside her house to make the beast with two backs, but is a little put off by the state of her living room. And let that be a free tip to my readers out there: Before you invite that special someone over for a nice night, you should probably shower, wear clean clothes, and make sure there's no discarded eyes of newt and toes of frog lying on your desk next to some old Cheetos bags. It kind of kills the mood.

Young Man: "Lilith, this cannot be the home of one so beautiful."

The basic set would later be used as Sarah Jane Smith's attic in The Sarah Jane Adventures, but at the moment, the place is all decked out like a dungeony British tourist trap. You know, cauldrons, skulls, pointy metal things, all the stuff that we Americans love to come over and gawk at.

Young Man: "Forgive me, this is foul."

Well, you know what they say: Fair is foul and foul is fair.

Actually, all things considered, things are pretty tidy, if a little dungeony.

Lilith hushes her man and goes in for the kiss. When they pull away, it appears as though the guy lost his beer goggles.

"Fair is foul," indeed.

Lilith: "Your kiss transformed me."

And apparently, it transformed her into somebody who wants to make this moment as awkward as possible. This guy just came in to discuss country matters, and now she wants to introduce him to her parents.

Lilith: "Mother Doomfinger! And Mother Bloodtide!"

Hey, two moms. Pretty progressive for 1599.

Two crones appear from nowhere and get to work feasting on the man's entrails while Lilith soliloquizes to the camera like her name was Tom Baker.

Lilith: "Soon, at the hour of woven words, we shall rise again and this fleeting Earth shall perish!"

After the intro, we cut to the Doctor and his brand-new companion, Miss Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), in the TARDIS. This is the first Martha-era episode I've covered, so I should probably go over her deal real quick.

She and the Doctor both enjoy broody poses, so they'll probably get along.

Martha Jones is a med student, as well as the Doctor's latest companion. She is also the first black companion in Doctor Who history, according to a 2006 Daily Mail article. This is assuming you don't count the Expanded Doctor Who universe or Scream of the Shalka. This also assumes that you either don't count or completely forgot about Mickey Smith.
But unfortunately for Martha, she is definitely the first post-Rose companion... unless you consider Donna Noble the first post-Rose companion, since "The Runaway Bride" came between Rose's last adventure as a full-time companion and Martha's first adventure... but again, that's neither here nor there. The reason I say "unfortunately" is because Martha's entire run gets hung up on the fact that she isn't Rose Tyler, as part of the Doctor's character arc.

At this point, Rose Tyler, the first person the Doctor built a connection with after the horrific Time War, is stuck in a parallel dimension, with the Doctor's final message to her cutting out before he could admit that he truly loved her. And as you might imagine, that's affecting him a bit. What this means for Martha is that, while he'd let her ride along forever under normal circumstances, the Doctor has merely promised her a quick trip in the TARDIS before dropping her back off at home, since he doesn't want to treat Rose as if she's disposable and replaceable.

Martha doesn't know any of this, of course; as far as she knows, the Doctor gives out one-per-customer time travel samples all the time. So like most companions, Martha is currently asking the Doctor all sorts of questions about his frankly magnificent time machine while he runs around like a madman pressing buttons and spinning things on the control panel in an attempt to keep the TARDIS relatively on course.

Martha: "But how do you travel in time? What makes it go?"
Doctor: "Oh, let's take the fun and the mystery out of everything. Martha, you don't want to know. It just does."

I can't help but wonder if this was a very subtle wink to the fans who had a lot of questions after Russell T. Davies apparently retconned away the Eye of Harmony (the black hole that powers all Time Lord time travel) by having the TARDIS refuel the "Heart of the TARDIS" at the Cardiff rift. Of course, the Heart of the TARDIS isn't a plot point this season, so there's really no reason to get hung up on details for any new audience members, either.

But anyway, the TARDIS ends up lurching to a halt.

Martha: "Blimey! Do you have to pass a test to fly this thing?"
Doctor: "Yes, and I failed."

The Doctor plays with Martha's excitement by telling her that outside the door is a brave new world.

Martha: "Where are we?"

"The real question is 'when are we'?"

"Right. I'll keep that in mind."

Martha steps outside the TARDIS into the busy London streets of yesteryear, and it sinks in for her that this madman's blue box is actually a time machine.

Martha: "Where are we? No, sorry. Got to get used to this whole new language. When are we?"

"There you go!"

The answer comes in esoteric fashion when they suddenly have to dodge somebody tossing a bucket of crap out the window into the streets. Like, literal crap.

Doctor: "Somewhere before the invention of the toilet."

"The real question is 'somewhen before the invention of the toilet!'"

Martha: "I've seen worse. I worked the late-night shift, A&E."

Is that the sort of "accident" they deal with in the Accident & Emergency Department?

Martha isn't worried about catching the thousands of Elizabethan-era diseases her body isn't familiar with from that Elizabethan poop, though. She's worried about doing the wrong thing, changing history, causing the Nazis to invent the atom bomb, and unleashing a horrible future where apes evolved from man.

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?"

You know, as much as the Doctor has yammered on about how each individual human on Earth is important, this show has demonstrated repeatedly that the Doctor can mess around with a lot of people's personal history and the world is pretty much the same for it.

Martha: "What if... I don't know, what if I kill my grandfather?"
Doctor: "Are you planning to?"

"Leave those antics for the Faction Paradox spinoffs, miss."

Martha: "No."
Doctor: "Well, then."

The Doctor looks around and takes note of the year (1599) and the place (London), and Martha suddenly realizes that she's a young black lady in London in 1599. In her own time, she may have had to deal with the occasional racist, which is bad enough, but now she's walking about during the years of the global slave trade. And she's worried about getting abducted and shipped off.

Doctor: "Why would they do that?"
Martha: "Not exactly white, in case you hadn't noticed."

It's entirely possible that he didn't. The evidence seems to suggest that the Doctor, across all his incarnations, (and possibly the Time Lord species as a whole) has a difficulty with faces that borders on what would be diagnosed in humans as prosopagnosia. Or to put it in layman's terms, "face blindness."

Now, the evidence goes both ways. Let's look at the Fourth and Twelfth Doctors, just to pick two.

Fourth Doctor
On the one hand, the Fourth Doctor recognized immediately when his Time Lady companion, Romana, regenerated into the spittin' image of Princess Astra, whom they'd helped in a previous adventure.

On the other hand, he had the following exchange with a man named Li H'sen Chang who had been brought in to translate for a Chinese man in police custody.

Li H'sen Chang: "I understand we all look the same."
Doctor: "Are you Chinese?"

Of course, that incident might be explained by the fact that Li H'sen Chang was played by a white guy in makeup, but still.

So the evidence would seem to suggest that he's not very good at faces in regards to people he's just met.

Leaving this incident aside, for the time being.

Twelfth Doctor
The Twelfth Doctor pulled the same "copying someone else's face" trick that Romana did. Sure, it did take him a while to figure out where he first saw Peter Capaldi's face, but that's understandable, since he's met so many people over the course of the centuries.

But while 12 zips around the universe in the TARDIS with Clara Oswald, they'll meet his guy from the future named "Orson Pink," who looks a lot like this guy they know in the present named "Danny Pink." And he should, since they're played by the same actor. Except that the Doctor will claim that he doesn't see a resemblance. Although "Rule 1: The Doctor Lies" may be in effect there.

So in addition to those incidents, here's an excerpt from the Doctor's attempt at disguising himself as a human in "The Caretaker."

Doctor: "So, you recognized me, then."
Clara: "You're wearing a different coat."
Doctor: "And you saw right through it."

Implying that he didn't consider the fact that somebody might recognize his undisguised face... despite the fact that he bears striking resemblance to that government official who killed his family and himself over on Torchwood. I'm surprised that never ended up being an issue for him.

All things considered, I think it makes logical sense that Time Lords might not be as good as recognizing faces as humans are. After all, Time Lords get to change their face twelve times. So their primary method of recognizing each other probably wouldn't depend on their face. Or even their race. Or their gender, as we've seen in recent years.

...Or there might be a much simpler answer that would explain the Doctor failing to notice that Li H'sen Chang is Chinese while successfully recognizing Princess Astra's face on Romana's body.

"Humans all look the same to me."

But he puts Martha's fears to rest.

Doctor: "I'm not even human. Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me."

I notice you're not mentioning the time your seventh incarnation tried just that at Windsor Castle. In front of the Queen. Although, again, he probably just didn't recognize her.

But a couple of black women stroll down the street in front of them as the Doctor points out the similarities between 1599 and 2008. He points to a couple manure shovelers (recycling), two guys drinking ale over a barrel (water cooler moment), and even the man holding up a sign claiming that the end of all things is nigh and the world shall burn in the fires of Hell.

Doctor: "Global warming."

But apart from all that, there was also pop culture in 1599. And they're just in time to catch the latest episode at the Globe Theatre, the open-air venue where the works of the Bard of Avon himself were performed.

Doctor: "When you get home, you can tell everyone you've seen Shakespeare."
Martha: "Then I could get sectioned!"

And so, they take in a performance of Love's Labour's Lost. Apparently, they enjoy it immensely.

Martha: "That's amazing, just amazing. It's worth putting up with the smell."

And, of course, they have to get in a cheap shot at the lack of women in the acting profession at this time.

Martha: "And those are men dressed as women, yeah?"
Doctor: "London never changes."

Shakespearean theatre: Where the men are men, the women are men, and every other line of dialogue is secretly a dirty joke.

But dang it, Martha came to see Shakespeare himself, so she starts shouting "Author! Author!" She briefly wonders if people actually did that in Victorian times, and she gets her answer as everybody starts copying her.

Doctor: "They do now."

Meanwhile, I'm distracted by this nameless extra who bears a striking resemblance to Baldrick from Blackadder.
Could this be cousin Bert Baldrick?

Anyway, the shouting works, and Shakespeare himself (Dean Lennox Kelly) graces the stage... with his thick, full head of hair and scruffy beard. Adding more fuel to the Doctor's possible prosopagnosia diagnosis is the fact that Martha's the one who brings up that this handsome devil doesn't exactly look like Shakespeare.

Martha: "He's a bit different to his portraits."

Well, according to Sod-Off Baldrick, Bert Baldrick says that he's heard that all portraits look the same these days, 'cause they're painted to a romantic ideal rather than as a true depiction of the idiosyncratic facial qualities of the person in question.

Plus, his portraits leave out the eye shadow.

But as Lilith sits in the balcony, secretly brandishing a voodoo doll, the Doctor is simply excited to hear the master wordsmith address the cheering crowd.

Doctor: "Always, he chooses the best words. New, beautiful, brilliant words."
Shakespeare: "Aw, shut yer big fat mouths!"

I really do wish that were a Shakespeare quote.

In the words of the Bard.

Doctor: "...Oh, well."
Martha: "You should never meet your heroes."

According to certain parts of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe... He already had. But I'll save that for the Review. For now, Shakespeare takes this opportunity to discuss Love's Labour's Lost with the audience, kind of like how certain modern TV shows do their aftershow. Like Talking Dead, or Doctor Who Confidential.

Shakespeare: "I know what your'e all saying. 'Love's Labour's Lost, that's a funny ending, isn't it?' It just stops. Will the boys get the girls? Well, don't get your hose in a tangle. You'll find out soon."

He gives an indeterminate date for the answers to the mystery, but Lilith kisses her voodoo doll, making the Bard stand straight up and announce that the premiere of his new sequel, Love's Labour's Won, will be shown tomorrow night... Alarming all the actors, who haven't even read the finished script, and the Doctor.

"Wait, shouldn't it be Love's Labour's Two?"

On their way out, Martha admits that she's never heard of Love's Labour's Won. And there's a good reason for it: It's one of the lost plays.

The reason that "Lost Plays" are a thing is a simple one. We don't have the script, but historical records say they were performed. Every Shakespeare play and sonnet that he have today exists because they were written down and stored in "folios." We honestly don't know how many lost plays there truly are because if they're lost and no historical record makes a note of them... then who's to say they ever existed? There might have been a prequel to Romeo and Juliet, for all we know.

But there are two plays that are historically referenced that don't exist in any surviving Shakespearean folio.

An 18th century playwright named Lewis Theobald asserted that his own play, Double Falsehood, was based on a lost play of Shakespeare's. And then there's Love's Labour's Won. Nothing is known about it, other than the fact that it was once mentioned alongside Love's Labour's Lost in a list made in 1598 for a book called Palladis Tamia. Some theorize that Love's Labour's Won is simply a different title for a play we actually do know about, some theorize it's a sequel... and some theorize that it never existed, and Frances Meres simply made a mistake or lied for some reason when he listed Love's Labour's Won. The debate goes on. I once watched two of my college professors exchange barbs over whether or not it was a real play, and things got real.

But speaking of "real," Love's Labour's Won seems to have been confirmed as quite real for the Doctor and Martha. And about as concretely as possible.

Martha: "Have you got a mini-disc or something? We can tape it, we can flog it. Sell it when we get home, make a mint."
Doctor: "...No."
Martha: "That would be bad."
Doctor: "Yeah, yeah."

"Dammit, Martha, the last thing I need right now is another Adam Mitchell."

Okay, but why don't they ask Shakespeare for a copy of the script, stick it in a chest, bury it, and then "discover" it in the 21st century? You know, not to make money, but as sort of a public service? The Doctor has to know how many people will waste their lives looking for it. Although he does also probably know how many people will waste their lives looking for the cure for cancer, and he hasn't brought the miracle cure back from the future, either. So I guess not playing God with history extends to lost Shakespeare plays.

Still, if I had a time machine, I might think about picking up a copy of Love's Labour's Won before rescuing all the old Doctor Who episodes that the BBC threw in the trash back in the '60s. Or I'd at least find a chance to watch them for myself.

And the Doctor has a similar idea, actually. He might not be on board with bringing the play to the future... But that doesn't mean he can't stop by and talk to Shakespeare about it.

Doctor: "Oh, I was going to give you a quick little trip in the TARDIS...."

No such thing.

Doctor: "...but I suppose we could stay a bit longer."

At this moment, Shakespeare is drinking at the inn with his actors, admiring Dolly the wench, whom he seems to be having an affair with. Dolly tells a young maid named Lilith to hurry up with her work to let the menfolk get to men-talking, and she obliges. The men-talking in question is about Love's Labour's Won. Quite simply, they haven't rehearsed it, and the script isn't even finished.

The Doctor enters, smiling as big as Tom Baker over meeting the Bard, but Shakespeare isn't in the mood to talk to fans.

Shakespeare: "No autographs. No, you can't have yourself sketched with me, and please don't ask where I get my ideas from."

But that's when Martha's face graces the room, which get's ol' Will's hey-nonny-nonny up in a dander.

Shakespeare: "Hey, nonny, nonny."

See?

So Shakespeare dismisses everybody so he can meet his new friends. He's utterly fascinated with Martha's clothes, which actually conform to the shape of her body, but he stays remarkably silent over the fact that she seems to be wearing gentleman's trousers... which nobody in 1599 ever actually picks up on.

Martha: "Erm, verily, forsooth, egads."
Doctor: "No, no, don't do that."

The Doctor whips out the psychic paper and introduces himself as "Sir Doctor of TARDIS," which has been his legitimate title since Queen Victoria knighted him. Of course, Shakespeare notices that the psychic paper is blank. Apparently, Shakespeare's too smart for it to work on him.

Martha: "No, it says right there, 'Sir Doctor and Martha Jones.' It says so."
Shakespeare: "I say it's blank."
Doctor: "Psychic paper. Um... Long story. Oh, I hate starting from scratch."

Oh, right. This is the first companion switchover in the Revived Series, meaning that the Doctor has to re-explain his various tools to his new companion. Hmmmm... I don't actually remember whether or not the Doctor ever explicitly explains the psychic paper to another companion, since he seems to rely on it less and less as time goes by.

Shakespeare: "'Psychic'? I've never heard that before, and words are my trade."

The Doctor is shaping up to be quite the mysterious figure, but Shakespeare is a little distracted.

Shakespeare: "More to the point, who is your delicious blackamoor lady?"
Martha: "What did you say?"
Shakespeare: "...Whoops."

Come on, Shakespeare, you can salvage this.

Shakespeare: "Isn't that a word we use nowadays? An Ethiop girl, a swarth, a Queen of Afric?"

Luckily, Martha can't help but be amused by the fact that all of Shakespeare's attempts to not be offensive are rather offensive.

Doctor: "It's political correctness gone mad."

Honestly, I'd hate to hear the slurs that are too racist for 1599 London.

As an aside, the Doctor has been making the best faces in this episode.

The Doctor lies that Martha's from the faraway land of Freedonia as the Master of the Revels enters the room, demanding to know what the deal is with this new play. Much like modern day Hollywood, there's a strict bureaucracy in place. You can't just say "There's a new play tomorrow!" You have to send that mess by the Elizabethan MPAA. Who happens to be this guy. He demands the script this very instant, but it's kind of not done yet. Shakespeare promises to send in the script in the morning, but the Master of the Revels decides to throw his weight around by canceling the play and vowing that Love's Labour's Won shall never be performed before leaving. Looks that that answers the big question, then.

On his way out, the Master of the Revels runs right into Lilith, who flirts with him for a second to distract him from the fact that she steals a lock of his hair. As he walks off, she hides in another room to bind his hair to a voodoo doll and psychically tell her mothers that the Master of the Revels is canceling the performance. Doomfinger and Bloodtide are adamant that the play must be performed tomorrow, so they all chant a spell together.

All: "Water damps the fiercest flame, drowns down girls and boys the same...."

As as Lilith dunks the voodoo doll in a bucket of water, the Master of the Revels begins spewing water from his lungs....

Martha expresses a bit of disappointment that the mystery over Love's Labour's Won ended up being so mundane, which is when a shriek erupts from outside. The Doctor, Martha, and Shakespeare rush outside to check on the hubbub, finding the Master of the Revels spitting out water every time they cut back to him. A simple effect to do on film, since they just fill his mouth with water between shots, but it's a technique so effective that they'll use it again to portray infected humans in "The Waters of Mars."

Doctor: "Leave it to me, I'm a Doctor."
Martha: "So am I, near enough."

You know, I do like the idea of the Doctor running around with somebody who actually has medical training. I mean, even Sherlock had Watson to examine bodies.

The... well, let's just call them "witches" at this point. The Witches Three complete their spell when Lilith stabs the voodoo doll's heart, since drowning apparently wasn't fast enough. Good thing they decided to needlessly partially-drown him beforehand. Otherwise, this wouldn't be nearly as suspicious.

Even though Martha's the medical student here, the Doctor's the one to realize that this man drowned Partially. Before something apparently damaged his heart. The Doctor lies to the assembled crowd that the man died from "a sudden imbalance of the humours."

Doctor: "A natural, if unfortunate demise."

This is obviously a load of crap, and the Doctor admits as much to Martha.

Doctor: "If I tell them the truth, they'll panic and think it was witchcraft."
Martha:" Okay, what was it, then?"
Doctor: "...Witchcraft."

Elsewhere, the Witches Three all rejoice over the fact that Love's Labour's Won is back on track, which will somehow allow them to free something from somewhere for some reason.

I'm sure it'll be explained in an evil monologue.

We cut back to Will's room, where Shakespeare laments the death of Lynley, the ill-fated Master of the Revels.

Shakespeare: "So many strange events. Not least of all, this land of Freedonia, where a woman can be a doctor."
Martha: "Where a woman can be what she likes."

Including, as of 2017, the Doctor. Speaking of her him...

Shakespeare: "How can a man so young have eyes so old?"
Doctor: "I do a lot of reading."

Shakespeare brushes off the Doctor's reply and notes that Martha keeps looking at the Doctor like she can't believe he even exists. This is the cue for Martha and the Doctor to head to the room Dolly prepared for them, as Shakespeare prepares to finish his play. He promises to get more answers out of the Doctor and his "constant performance."

Doctor: "All the world's a stage."
Shakespeare: "Hmm. I might use that."

Martha's not too impressed with the accommodations in their room, but the Doctor's seen worse. She didn't have the forethought to pack a toothbrush, so the Doctor hands her a spare one with built-in Venusian spearmint flavoring. With no self-awareness, the Doctor plops down on the only bed and invites Martha to join him. He doesn't realize the implications (or the fanfic he's probably inspiring), since his mind is occupied with thoughts of witchcraft, as is Martha's mind.

Martha: "It's all a bit 'Harry Potter.'"

You realize, Martha, that you're saying that to Barty Crouch, Jr.

Doctor: "Wait till you read book seven. Ohhhhhh. I cried."

"Blood. Bath. It was like The Hunger Games, but with Weasleys."

"The what games?"

"Don't worry about it."

But... magic! Actual magic. The blood-control of the Sycorax just taps into DNA and hypnotizes people, and werewolves are just an alien infection of sorts... But this is magic. For-real magic. The Doctor has encountered actual magic.

Martha: "I mean, witches, black magic, and all that, it's real?"
Doctor: "Course it isn't!"

Well, I guess there aren't more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in the Doctor's philosophy.

Doctor Who could have easily featured magic as part of its fantastical universe. But early on, the show decided to go all Arthur C. Clarke and have "magic" be "advanced science," despite a few attempts to the contrary.

Leela, one of the Fourth Doctor's companions, was originally going to have magic powers that she inherited from her grandmother, which were changed into a sort of danger-sense before she finally appeared. And then there was the time that an evil witch came along from an alternate-dimension where magic was real. Plus Lady Peinforte and the pilot episode of K-9 and Company....

But 99.999% of the time, "magic" is just "science" in Doctor Who.

Doctor: "Looks like witchcraft, but isn't. It can't be. Are you going to stand there all night?"

Martha joins the Doctor in bed, and the two lie there together. Martha notes that people are bound to gossip about the two of them sharing a bed, but the Doctor is musing about "psychic energy" and a human's inability to channel it to drown somebody. And so, as the Doctor thinks, they lie there for a moment, staring into each other's eyes.

Doctor: "There's something I'm missing, Martha. Something really close. It's staring me right in the face, and I can't even see it."

"You picking up on this subtext, everybody?"

Doctor: "Rose would know."

Ooh, harsh. But as long as the Doctor doesn't compound the error....

Doctor: "A friend of mine, Rose, right now she'd say exactly the right thing."

Okay, well, I guess as long as the Doctor doesn't explicitly call out Martha for not being Rose, then...

Doctor: "Still, can't be helped. You're a novice, never mind."

Well... Dang.

I get that the Doctor is supposed to be working through the season-long character arc where he's stubbornly unwilling to let Rose go, which will eventually be resolved by the time he forges a close friendship with Donna... But this is still harsh.

Doctor: "I'll take you back home tomorrow."

But Martha doesn't understand why the Doctor has suddenly closed himself off from her, so she turns around and blows out the candle in a bit of a huff. Meanwhile, William does something most writers have done at some point: he stays up into the wee hours to finish writing before his deadline. Lilith climbs up to his window and uses some kind of sleeping potion on him before using a marionette to control his hand, forcing him to write down her words to finish his play while the Doctor stays awake, thinking. Dolly comes in to give Will what she refers to as his "special treat," only to find Lilith already in there.

Dolly: "Oh, aye. I'm not the first then."

Lilith decides to steal her broom before killing her, the scream from which wakes up Martha, the Doctor, and Shakespeare. As the Doctor determines that the woman died of fright, Martha can only watch in disbelief as a shadowy, cackling figure rides off into the night on Dolly's broomstick.

I'm sure there's a logical and not-at-all-convoluted explanation for this.

The next day, Shakespeare mourns her loss. She was a tough lady who sat out three plague outbreaks, only to literally be scared to death. Something is clearly afoot.

Doctor: "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."
Shakespeare: "I might use that."
Doctor: "You can't, it's someone else's."

Well, it's not like he'll be using it for the next 348 years.

All these suspicious deaths seem to be connected to Shakespeare in some way, and Martha notes that not only did she see a witch, but Shakespeare has written about witches.

Shakespeare: "I have? When was that?"
Doctor: "Not... Not quite yet."

But Shakespeare remembers that Peter Streete, the man who designed the Globe Theatre, mentioned witches. So the Doctor runs off yelling "The architect!" And the others follow him. On an unrelated note, I would not be surprised if there was a Time Lord called "The Architect." Hmm... I wonder if the Architect from "Time Heist" counts?

Anyway, once at the Globe, the Doctor starts musing about the 14 sides of the Globe Theatre. 14. No more, no less. For some reason, Peter Streete decided on 14 sides.

Doctor: "Why does that ring a bell? 14?"
Martha: "There's 14 lines in a sonnet."

You might throw that suggestion out for being unimportant, but the Doctor notes that this is a case of words and shapes following the same design. The Doctor wracks his brain for an explanation, but Will protests that this is just a theatre.

Doctor: "Oh, yeah, but a theatre's magic, isn't it? You should know. You stand on this stage, say the right words with the right emphasis at the right time... Oh, you can make men weep. Or cry with joy. Change them."

The Doctor starts thinking about the power to change things, and Martha compares the small, wooden frame with such mighty power inside to the TARDIS.

Doctor: "Oh, Martha Jones, I like you."

Doesn't exactly make up for "Rose would know," though.

The Doctor finally gets the notion to talk to Peter Streete himself, but there's a small snag. He's in the madhouse, having started babbling about hearing witches whisper in his brain. They leave to go visit Peter, and Will hands the last scene of Love's Labour's Won to his actors before he leaves, reminding them to give it their all.

Shakespeare: "You never know, the Queen might turn up. ...As if. She never does."

They begin rehearsing as Will leaves. On the way to the asylum, Will starts asking about Freedonia, the land where women can be whatever they want to be. Martha notes that the Queen is, in fact, a woman.

Shakespeare: "Ah, she's Royal, that's God's business. Thought you are a royal beauty."
Martha: "Whoa, nelly; I know for a fact you've got a wife in the country."
Shakespeare: "But, Martha, this is town."

As fun as it is to watch these two, the Doctor wants to... you know. Hurry up and save the world.

Doctor: "Come on, we can all have a good flirt later!"
Shakespeare: "Is that a promise, Doctor?"
Doctor: "...Oh, 57 academics just punched the air."

Is that what Shakespeare meant by "love all"? I can only imagine what "trust a few" and "do wrong to none" mean.

Meanwhile, onstage, the actors start discussing the new play, especially the gibberish that seems to be Will's attempt at an ending. But they get paid to say the words, not write them, and they practice the final words of the play. And get a load of this mess.

"The Light of Shadmoch's hollow moon doth shine on to a point in space, Betwixt Dravidian shores, linear 5-9-3-0-1-6...."

The words resonate with such power that as the witches watch from afar, some kind of phantom appears from the stirred aether.

Man, the ghost of Hamlet's father looks more demonic than I remember.

Stopping the speech makes the shade disappear, and the two men agree to never speak of this moment again, since they don't want to end up in the madhouse. But speaking of the madhouse, Martha and the Doctor are appalled by the treatment of the inmates. Specifically, the fact that their guide offers to beat a few inmates for entertainment.

Martha: "And you put your friend in here?"
Shakespeare: "Oh, it's all so different in Freedonia."

Everywhere but in Arkham. Shakespeare stands by the place, though.

Shakespeare: "I've been mad; I've lost my mind. Fear of this place set me right again. Serves its purpose."

It all happened when the Black Death claimed Shakespeare's only son.

Shakespeare: "Made me question everything. The futility of this fleeting existence. To be, or not to be.... Oh, that's quite good."
Doctor: "You should write that down."
Shakespeare: "Hmm, maybe not. A bit pretentious?"
Doctor: "Enh...."

It's better in the original Klingon.

But with Peter Streete prepped for guests, they're let in to see him. The Doctor dismisses the man with the keys and whip for some alone time with Peter. Elsewhere in London, Lilith senses something wrong and peers into her scrying cauldron to find the Doctor talking to Peter. The Witches Three realize that this mysterious man must know more than he lets on, and they prepare to take care of this while the Doctor does a Vulcan mind meld with Peter. The Doctor eases the pain by convincing Peter that the events of a year ago are just a story, allowing Peter to finally talk about the witches.

Peter speaks of witches whispering in his ear, telling him to build a 14-sided building. They were very insistent about that. And when he'd finished, they broke Peter's mind. After some prodding, Peter reveals that the Witches have a base of operations on All Hallows Street, which is when Mother Doomfinger shows up with her magic finger of doom to kill Peter Streete with a single touch.

The other Witches Two laugh from afar as Doomfinger prepares to kill the others, which is when Martha springs into action.

Martha: "Let us out! Let us out!"
Doctor: "Well, that's not gonna work; the whole building's shouting that."

This is the obligatory "the Doctor gets clever" moment for the episode, where he realizes that all he has to do is figure out who this creature is. And after realizing that the fourteen sides of the Globe Theatre correspond to the fourteen stars of the Rexel planetary configuration, he susses it out.

Doctor: "Creature, I name you... Carrionite!"

And with that, Doomfinger disappears in a puff of logic.

Martha: "What did you do?"
Doctor: "I named her."

Ohhhhhh, that's what's in a name! Mystery solved, Juliet.

Doctor: "The power of a name. That's old magic."
Martha: "But there's no such thing as magic."
Doctor: "Well, it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. The Carrionites use words instead."

Oh, like how if you recite the formula "3X2(9YZ)4A," you get spontaneous super-speed. Or how if you quantify the numbers manipulated by a synthetic mock-up of an Italian restaurant, you can travel across the universe in a matter of moments.
In real life, mathematics need to be practically applied. Sure, the atom-splitting equation is important, but it's not enough to know the numbers behind splitting an atom, you have to build the machine that can do it. You can't just say "Hey, atom, here's some numbers. Now make like a banana." The Doctor Who universe, however, is a different story.

In the Fourth Doctor serial "Logopolis," the Doctor went to the titular Logopolis to meet with the most amazing mathematicians in the universe, who could change reality with math itself (a skill that one of the Doctor's companions, Adric, would be forced to use to bring an entire city into existence from nothingness in the following story, "Castrovalva"). Logopolitan "Block-transfer computations" were so powerful that they were able to postpone the end of the universe itself... which I'd imagine frustrated the builders of Milliways to no end.
In the episode "School Reunion," the Krillitanes were trying something similar when they took over a school and supercharged the students' minds to try and solve the Skasis Paradigm, an algorithm which would allow them to rewrite reality on a whim.

And it seems as though the Carrionites do the same thing. But instead of numbers, they use words. Rhyming English words, apparently... which you'd think would mean that you could cast a spell to turn yourself into the Hulk by saying "Roses are red, violets are blue, Kermit is green, and now I am too."

Forget the necronomicon; the most powerful magic tool in the universe is apparently the New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary. Although, to be fair, I'd imagine that something is lost when the Carrionite language is translated into English by the TARDIS's translation circuits, though. Hence the lack of "magic" users in Britain's history who found out how to change reality through magic spells. Although, again, there was Lady Peinforte....

Actually, there's an exchange that Bill Potts has with the Twelfth Doctor that makes much more sense now.

Bill: "One time, you were gonna give a lecture on quantum physics. You talked about poetry."
Doctor: "Poetry and physics, same thing."
Bill: "How... is it the same?"
Doctor: "Because of the rhymes."

And as for the Doctor's little "Power of a Name" trick, I'd imagine that whatever magic the three witches were using to exist outside of the Carrionite prison suddenly stopped when the Doctor used Word Magic to get the universe's attention. In the same way that if you can manage to fly (by throwing yourself at the ground and missing the target by distracting yourself at the last second), then you can't let yourself think about the fact that you're flying, because then gravity will suddenly glance sharply in your direction and demand to know what the hell you're doing.

Doomfinger reappears at home and informs the others that the Doctor knows who they truly are, so Lilith vows that the Doctor will die by her hand. But the bell tolls, and it's time for the two older Carrionites head to the theatre while Lilith waits for the Doctor's arrival.

Once back at Will's place, the Doctor explains that the Carrionites are an ancient race from the beginning of time. And they probably want the usual with Earth: Kill all humans, take the planet for their own use. And the Doctor theorizes that they've been manipulating a master wordsmith to enact their nefarious schemes. Especially since Will doesn't remember writing the last few, quite strange lines of the play.

Doctor: "The right combination of words, spoken in the right place, with the shape of the Globe as an energy converter! The play's the thing!"

"Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King!"

Doctor: "And yes, you can have that."

The play begins as the Doctor formulates a plan; Will will go sop the play while he and Martha head to All Hallows Street to take care of the Carrionites.

Doctor: "Once more unto the breach!"
Shakespeare: "I like that! ...Wait a minute, that's one of mine."
Doctor: "Oh, just shift!"

The play continues, while Londoners and the Carrionites in the balcony watch. A crystal ball in the Carrionites' possession, through which the Carrionite prison can be seen, quietly shrieks and screams, so Doomfinger and Bloodtide tell their kin to be patient. At this point, Will bursts onstage, interrupts a monologue, and apologizes for having to stop the play. Yeesh, I had nightmares like this back in college. Can't remember my lines, don't remember what play I'm in, not wearing my costume, and the director barges onstage to tell the audience that he's canceling the play.

But the show must go on, and things resume after the Carrionites use their voodoo doll to make Shakespeare go sleepy-bye onstage, allowing the actors to move what they believe to be a boozy playwright.

Kemp: "You must forgive our irksome Will. He's been on the beer... And feelin' ill!"

As the play resumes, the Doctor tries to pinpoint the Carrionites' house while Martha uses logic.

Martha: "The world didn't end in 1599. It just didn't. Look at me, I'm living proof."
Doctor: "Oh, how to explain the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux?"

Doctor, this isn't the first time you've been asked this question.

Pyramids of Mars
Sarah Jane Smith: "I mean, we know the world didn't end in 1911."

The Unquiet Dead
Rose Tyler: "I know for a fact there weren't corpses walking around in 1869."

He's had to explain this before, but since Martha's from 2008, he decides to compare it to Back to the Future.

Martha: "The film?"
Doctor: "No, the novelization. Yes, the film!"

Basically, Marty McFly changes the past, thereby creating a new future where he never existed. So he slowly begins to vanish in a puff of logic as the paradox catches up to him. Or in other words....

You know, like Reverse-Flash in Legends of Tomorrow Season 2. But without undead speedsters.

Of course, Doctor Who likes to go back and forth with how its temporal mechanics work.

Basically, you've got "fixed points in time" that can never change, but you also have other points that can change all willy-nilly... while often failing to reconcile the two. I have a sneaking suspicion that any "fixed point" in time after 1599 is going to have trouble existing after witches take over the Earth. I mean, if the deaths of the first human crew on Mars are a "fixed point in time," then how is that going to happen if space witches enslave Earth in the 1500s?

Anyway, the Doctor can't figure out which house to investigate, so the house in front of him opens its door apropos of nothing.

Doctor: "Make that witch house."

That's the face I make when I tell a particularly bad pun, too.

Once inside, they come face-to-face with Lilith, and Martha decides to take care of this herself, so she points her finger and does what the Doctor did.

Martha: "I name thee... Carrionite!"

And a whole lot o' nothing happens.

Martha: "What did I do wrong? Was it the finger?"

You have to swish and flick, as I understand it.

Lilith: "Power of a name works only once."

Or else the episode would be over.

Lilith: "I gaze upon this bag of bones, and now I name thee, Martha Jones."

But the trick only manages to knock her out, and the Carrionite guesses it's because she's so far from her own space and time. Lilith turns her attention to the Doctor, but discovers that she can't sense his name. But instead of asking a certain question, she notices that there is a name she can use to cause him misery.

Doctor: "The naming won't work on me."
Lilith: "But your heart grows cold. The north wind blows, and carries down the distant... Rose."

But the power of a name doesn't seem to work on the Doctor through Rose's name, either. Probably because one by any other name would smell as sweet.

Doctor: "Oh, big mistake. 'Cause that name keeps me fighting."

He demands to know where the Carrionites went and why they're back, and Lilith obliges.

Lilith: "The Eternals found the right word to banish us into deep darkness."

Then they apparently started goofing around with deep-space boat races. No, really.

"Enlightenment." Fifth Doctor. Look it up.

Doctor: "Then how did you escape?"
Lilith: "With new words. New and glittering."

"Words like 'embiggen,' 'bae,' and 'frindle.'"

Apparently, when Shakespeare's son died, the Carrionites were able to tap into his madness and grief, and therefore his mind. Even with Shakespeare's amazing mastery of language, only three Carrionites could use Word Magic to escape, but they were enough. With Shakespeare and Peter Streete under their control, the stage was set, the words were written, and the power of words will free the Carrionites and leave them free to take over the Earth, followed shortly by the universe.

As the Doctor stands between her and the rest of the world, she starts flirting with him. And once again, it's only to distract him as she steals some hair. She flies outside, out of the Doctor's reach, and binds his hair to a voodoo doll.

Doctor: "Now, you might call that magic, I'd call that a DNA replication module."

But with a quick stab of the doll, she stops his heart, silences his mouth, and flies away laughing. Lucky for the Doctor, Martha wakes up. Also lucky for the Doctor, he's got that spare heart. He instructs Martha on where to hit his chest and back to get the ol' ticker (well, one of them) working again, and they rush to the Globe, too late to stop the final monologue.

The iambic pentameter descends into spatial coordinates, and the command is given to free the Carrionites. A portal opens, and infinite Carrionites begin to swarm up into the sky. But the doomsayer from the beginning couldn't be happier as his prophecies of doom seem to be coming to pass.

Doomsayer: "I told thee so! I told thee!"

The Carrionites magically close the doors to the Globe to keep the Londoners from escaping their doom, but luckily, Martha and the Doctor are already backstage, telling Shakespeare that he had one job.

Shakespeare: "I hit my head...."
Doctor: "Yeah, don't rub it, you'll go bald."

The Doctor heads onstage as the Carrionites usher in the Millenium of Blood... But there's nothing he can do. Soon, Hell will be empty, and all the Devils will be here.

Or all the CGI blobs, at least.

It's time for Will to end this. After all, as the Doctor says, Will's the master wordsmith. And if his words gave rise to this horror, than his words can undo it. So he begins to improvise.

Shakespeare: "Close up this din of hateful, dire decay, decomposition of your witches' plot! You thieve my brains, consider me your toy, my doting Doctor tells me I am not!"
Carrionites: "No! Words of power!"

Words of wisdom, words of power?

Shakespeare: "Foul Carrionite specters, cease your show, between the points...?"
Doctor: "7-6-1-3-9-0!"

Good thing they're saying "Oh" instead of "zero," or the coordinates wouldn't fit the meter. Lucky Will had the foresight to make a rhyme with "Oh" or "Zero" in any case. But it looks like his luck is going to run out.

Shakespeare: "Banished like a tinker's cuss, I say to thee...?"
Doctor: "Uh...?"

I guess even a master wordsmith trips up sometimes. Even though you'd think Shakespeare could come up with "Get away from us." But Martha has a suggestion to finish the spell with a rhyming couplet.

Martha: "Expelliarmus!"

And with that, each and every Carrionite is sucked back up into the portal, taking every copy of Love's Labour's Won with them.

Doctor: "Good ol' J.K!"

I don't see what the singer from Jamiroquai has to do with any of this.

The audience, as is their wont, assume that this was all part of the show and applaud wildly as the Doctor heads to the balcony to find the Carrionites locked away inside their crystal ball for good.

"No matter if it takes an eternity, you will bow down before us! Both you, and one day, your heirs!"

"You leave Susan out of this."

The next day, Shakespeare and Martha hang out in the Globe and talk for a bit. Shakespeare tries to tell her a pun based on the words hart, heart, deer, and dear, but it goes over her head.

Shakespeare: "Then give me a joke from Freedonia."

Oooh, here's a question for all you readers out there. If you traveled back in time and had the opportunity to tell Shakespeare a joke, what joke would you tell him?

Personally, I'd go with this old classic. "A man went to see his doctor. He says, 'Doctor, it hurts when I do this!' The doctor says, 'Then don't do that.'" Sure, it's corny now, but that would be cutting-edge in 1599. Martha, on the other hand, goes for a more topical joke.

Martha: "Shakespeare walks into a pub, and the landlord says, 'Oi, mate, you're Bard.'"

He laughs, despite not getting it, and he pulls Martha a bit closer, continuing to flirt.

Shakespeare: "The Doctor may never kiss you. Why not entertain a man who will?"
Martha: "...I don't know how to tell you this, O Great Genius, but your breath doesn't half stink."

Give him that toothbrush with the Venusian spearmint.

The Doctor returns from prop storage with a few souvenirs, including a horse skull, which he decides he'd rather not keep around on second thought.

Doctor: "Reminds me of a Sycorax."
Shakespeare: "Sycorax. Nice word. I'll have that off you, as well."

Thus providing the punchline to a long-running joke. The joke here being that the name of the witch "Sycorax" in Shakespeare's The Tempest has baffled researchers for centuries as to where he got the name from, with one theory guessing that it's a reference to Corax of Syracuse.

Shakespeare's head still hurts, so the Doctor hands him the stereotypical Shakespeare collar to use as a neck brace. Martha asks about the play, and the Doctor confirms that when Will undid the magic of Love's Labour's Won, he banished every copy into the aether, or the Void, or the Untempered Schism, or the Time Vortex, or wherever the heck the Eternals trapped the Carrionites.

Martha: "You could write it up again."
Doctor: "Yeah, better not, Will. There's still owner in those words. Maybe it should best stay forgotten."

But Shakespeare has new ideas. Not about witches. Not yet. He plans on dealing with his grief by writing about fathers and sons.

Shakespeare: "In memory of my boy; my precious Hamnet."
Martha: "Hamnet?"
Shakespeare: "That's him?"
Martha: "...Ham-net?"

No, really, look it up. Hamnet.

But alas, it's time to leave. The Doctor's got to lock the crystal ball in the TARDIS and take Martha back to "Freedonia."

Shakespeare: "You mean travel on through time and space?"

Yeah, he's figured out that "back to Freedonia" means "back to the future." And not the novelization or the film. And he's also figured out that the Doctor is from another world.

Shakespeare: "It's not hard to work out."

But Shakespeare doesn't ask about the future at all. Not even about whether or not the future even knows his name.

"You'll be remembered. Books will be written about you, songs will be sung about you... and hundreds of years from now, this episode of your life will play out at 7PM, with myself played by some great, heroic actor of the age."

"Yeah. And I could be played by some tiny tit in a beard."

But before Martha leaves, Shakespeare decides to leave Martha with one last verse.

Shakespeare: "A sonnet for my dark lady."

Shakespeare's sonnets were actually written to people, though their identities have been disputed. The usual subjects are referred to as the Fair Youth, the Rival Poet, and, yes, the Dark Lady.

Shakespeare: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

And what's really funny here is that Shakespeare is actually recycling a sonnet he wrote for the Fair Youth, though Martha seems flattered enough.

But Will is interrupted by the arrival of the actual Queen Elizabeth I, who apparently heard about the performance and wants to see the play for herself. The Doctor is pleased as punch to meet the Queen, but apparently, She has met him before, and identifies him as her "sworn enemy."

Queen Elizabeth I: "Off with his head!"

Are we sure this isn't the Queen of Hearts?

Although this does seem in character for her....

And so, the Doctor and Martha run back to the TARDIS as they both wonder what the Doctor will end up doing in the past to lead to this. But that's another episode for another time. And as the Doctor narrowly avoids an arrow to the chest while they head inside his time machine, the episode ends.

Now let's review.