Doctor Who (David Tennant) treats his new companion Martha (Freema Agyeman) to an evening of Shakespeare the way only the old doc can in “The Shakespeare Code.”  Anxious to introduce Martha to the freedom of discovery made possible with the Tardis, the Doctor transports her to the bard's day and age, only to find the writer besieged by an interplanetary evil bent on the destruction of mankind, naturally.


The Doctor takes Martha back to 1599, to the debut of Shakespeare's alliterative “Love's Labours Lost.”  A devious woman named Lilith is waiting in the wings as well, flanked by two witches.  When Martha coaxes the Bard to the stage, Lilith brings a voodoo doll out and takes control of Shakespeare who announces that a sequel to the play will debut shortly.   Intrigued by this unknown play, the Doctor and Martha decide to pay the playwright a visit.

At Shakespeare's den, a city official enters and demands a copy of the play.  Lilith captures some of his hair and this time uses her voodoo for more fatal purposes, killing the official by dunking the doll in a vat of water.   The Doctor figures out that it is withcraft at play, while Lilith controls Shakespeare, forcing him to write the play.

It isn't long before Martha and the Doctor figure out what is really going on.  Lillith and her cronies are Carrionites who are altering the course of time with Shakespeare's words to pave the way for their descent to Earth.  If they are not stopped, Martha's future, and the Doctor's, will be altered.

Before they can come up with a solution, Lilith gets a lock of Doctor Who's hair and makes a doll of him as well.  She stabs him in the heart, not knowing that he good Doctor actually has two hearts.

Since the power to bring the Carrionites to the present are woven into Shakespeare's new play, the Doctor and Martha make it to the debut in time to convince him to alter the wording.  Martha even inserts a word from a Harry Potter book, and the spell is effectively foiled.

The play is destroyed, guaranteeing time will straighten itself out, and the Doctor and Martha journey onward for their next adventure. 


- Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image From SciFi.com)