The Shakespeare Code

Mmmm. Not totally sure what to say about this episode. I'll tackle the good points first: a fairly convincing recreation of Elizabethan London, quite reminiscent of the slightly later setting?of The Visitation, though by no means any more impressive (in fact, I'd say, the latter story's depiction of Restoration London still has the edge in atmosphere); the concept of an alien race who use words like a science (ie, 'magic') is quite unusual, albeit rather absurd; the scene with the deranged architect in Bedlam was nicely disturbing; the necessarily un-pc but authentic references to Martha's incongruous skin colour (forgot to say last review that I am very pleased that we finally have a black companion) was well done;?the leader of the?Carrionites (I thought it was Carrier Knights)?played it well; the period-spiced incidental music; the Doctor was refreshingly alien and detached in the bed scene.

The bad/less good points: the bed scene being there in the first place - utterly inappropriate and irrelevant; the frankly rather silly, hackneyed interpretations of cackling, hook-nosed witches and?their rather jarring and badly composed rhyming speech; the hit-and-miss, rather prattish?depiction of Shakespeare, not as bad as I anticipated, but very much from the post-modern 'laddish' school of historical?interpretation currently in vogue in modern drama (cue Ray Winston's ludicrous cockney portrayal of Henry VIII a few years back); the vapid flirtations between Shakespeare and Martha; the constant and rather clumsy allusions to various famous Shakespearian lines put oh-so-unsubtly into his mouth by the Doctor; the absolutely fatuous allusions to Harry Potter throughout ('Good old JK'), and as always, uttered even more painfully from the Timelord's own mouth rather than from that of his companion (this is simply sloppy and ill-thought-out scripting); token but growingly typical sexual innuendos; the 2,000 mph cosmic explanations hurtled out by the Doctor in one of his typical fits of sudden illumination; the continual references to Shakespeare's 'genius'; and, well, the entire plot... which was frankly utter bunkum from start to finish.

Apart from the odd interesting idea here and there, The Shakespeare Code is still a disappointing mish-mash of 'almost good'?and 'Doctor Who for idiots'. Sadly, chiefly the latter in my view. To have to keep throwing in continual contemporary mainstream cultural allusions - particularly to the tiresome banality of Harry Potter - in order to 'draw in the audience' is a) patronising to most of us watching and b) a sign of scriptural insecurity, in that obviously the writer doesn't have enough confidence in the strength of his own piece of work to let it just stand alone and tell its own story. Stylistically this episode is so blatantly similar to the staid triteness of the Potter films that there is no need at all to bring this similarity into the script itself. That's almost like saying 'Look we know we're just shamelessly ripping your stuff off Miss Rowling, but at least we're flagging it up!'

Then of course there is the title and its obvious pun on the equally tiresome legacy of the Da Vinci Code. Who bets RTD said to Gareth Roberts: write whatever you want as long as it includes Shakespeare, Harry Potter references, Cackling Witches, a zeitgeist-oriented title and a pointless appearance from Elizabeth I at the end!? Not much left for Roberts to do then. Except just shove a shock-haired Doctor and thoroughly bland companion in.

Martha then? Haven't much to say on her at all really. I find her completely bland and uninteresting, and frankly almost exactly the same as Rose, except with a stethescope to her name. What's new? Hardly Liz Shaw is she?

As for the complete arrogance of attempting to invent a lost Shakespeare play, Love's Labour's Won, well... I suppose it's better than Hamlet II or?Macbeth - The Return (and?this time?he means business).

One more thing: I think we've all forgotten that this isn't even the first appearance of Shakespeare in the series. Remember The Chase? Mmmm. Dean Lennox-Kelly hardly resembles that previous depiction of the Bard does he? Bit of a cock up there then.

This episode is certainly a big leap forward from the quite appallingly banal season opener, but is still far far away from not only the majority of the classic series, but also from many previous peak episodes of the last two years (such as Unquiet Dead, Dalek and Impossible Planet).

Next week looks like an equal waste of video tape but I remain stubbornly optimistic as some later episodes, particularly the tantalising Human Nature and its scarecrows running amok, look and sound much more like the kind of thing we should expect from paying such an exorbitant licence fee.

Here's hoping. 4/10