At the end of Smith and Jones, the Doctor tells Martha that the TARDIS is a time-machine, and as a thank-you for her help in defeating the Plasmavore, the Doctor offers her a trip in the TARDIS.
So for the third consecutive series, the opening tiptych comprises a contemporaneous story introducing -- or re-introducing -- characters, a trip into the far future, and a trip into the recent past. In this, the third series, however, Davies & Co have at least rung the changes slightly by having the Doctor take Martha further back than the mid to late Victorian era.
This time the pair travel back to the sixteenth century and meet Shakespeare, (played with great aplomb as a high-kicking, kiss-blowing, sexy sixteenth century rock star, by Dean Lennox Kelly) who takes an immediate fancy to Martha, and greets her with what may be the line of the series:
"Hey Nonny Nonny!"
Unknown to the Doctor, Shakespeare is being manipulated by the sinister Carrionites, a group of witch-like creatures from the Dawn of Time (Davies seems to have developed something of a fetish for creatures from the Dawn of Time -- with the 'Devil' imprisoned in The Impossible Planet, and the Racnoss in The Runaway Bride, this is the third such in seven episodes; it's in danger of becoming as big a cliche as running up and down corridors). The Carrionites brainwash Shakespeare into writing his new play, Love's Labours Won, and inserting some lines of code into the ending.
Just as humans use mathematics to manipulate the universe, the Doctor explains, so the Carrionites use language. Christina Cole is also outstanding as Lilith, the leader of the Weird Sisters, an obvious reference to MacBeth. One of the delights of The Shakespeare Code is the obvious delight in language, with a series of running gags based on Shakespearian titles and lines, and even the odd Dylan Thomas reference.
The Carrionites have already manipulated the architect of the Globe Theatre into building it as an octahedron, a fourteen sided structure, to magnify the effect of the utterance of the code at a specific time; their plan is that when the lines are recited, the code uttered in the magnifying effect of the theatre at a specific time will release their sisters, until now confined in an intra-temporal prison. And when they do, they will feast, on human flesh...
Apart from the standard plot elements (humanity in danger, science so old that it might as well be magic) The Shakespeare Code has much to recommend it, although there is one major plot hole almost large enough to derail the whole episode. Robert Silverberg mentions in Worlds of Wonder that the Persian carpet weavers "deliberately introduce one almost imperceptible technical flaw into their intricate patterns, on the grounds that to weave a perfect rug would be dangerously blasphemous." So it seems to be with Doctor Who episodes, such as The Shakespeare Code.
Having stunned Shakespeare once in the build-up to the denouement with a doll-like mannikin, the Weird Sisters then allow him free rein to thwart their plans, even remarking on it, yet do nothing to try to stop him. There are hints that spells will work once, yet no even tries, which almost destroys the plot's credibility.
Fortunately, with Kelly and Cole almost upstaging Tennant and Agyeman, the obvious delight in Shakespearian history, the Bard's lust for Martha, and continuing development of the Doctor-Martha relationship -- just as she is getting amorous, he tells her how great Rose was -- the story's positives just about outweigh the negatives.
But it's a close run thing.
