The Shakespeare Code

Doctor Who Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

 

Greetings, Mortal.

Fear me, for I am a dark being from the dawn of time. I was born in the chaos when blood and magic still ruled the universe. I can travel through language itself. I am everywhere and nowhere.

Yes, I look like a witch. A stereotypical, cackling, broomstick riding witch. So what? Clearly it’s just how people in the 16th century personify my awe-inspiring fear as witchcraft. One of us is hot though. Sometimes. I see this awkwardness concerning my ridiculous appearance is undermining my threat. In that case, let me reveal to you my name; for as we all know, there is much magical power in names. Are you ready?

Carrionites!

What? I do not sound like some crazy cross between a vulture and a termite. I’m ancient and terrible! Oh, fine. My name sounds lame.1 I could really do with some long “ah” sound somewhere, and perhaps a “k” or a “z”. While we’re talking about words, I should mention that I’m connected to your puny universe through the words and language of William Shakespeare.

Yes, mortal, I come to you through the now-traditional ‘celebrity historical’ Doctor Who story for series three. Yes, these puny bipeds still fear writing a story set in the past without dumping monsters in it. In many ways, my plan is reminiscent of the Gelth from season one; though rather than coming through the rift, we’re in ur Shakespeare manipulating ur canonical literature. Bwa ha ha.

He’s a pretty cool Shakespeare, at that. Much more rock star than one might expect if you hadn’t seen your Earth film Shakespeare in Love.2 Like Dickens and Queen Victoria before him, the playwright has received some excellent treatment from the Doctor Who team. Queen Elizabeth I ends up somewhat shallower, but it’s so funny I think even I can forgive it. And I’m a terrifying alien from the dawn of time, albeit one of the ones who isn’t hot.

In the end, I’m not sure I’m happy with my presentation in ‘The Shakespeare Code’. As far as evils from the dawn of time go, I feel like we come across as a bit pissweak. Which is a shame, as I feel some genuine menace would have elevated the story from a generally amusing3 but lightweight tale to the sort of awesome gothic excitement that has you geeky humans drooling. As it is, the human race will forever know me as a not quite funny cackling cartoon witch. I grow sad, pitiful worm. Leave me.

Oh, alright. I’ll go. I suppose it is your dimension after all.

  1. Whether I sound more pathetic than the Krillitanes of ‘School Reunion’ I leave as an exercise for the reader. ↩
  2. Actually, that goes for a lot of the content in this story. If I hadn’t watched a much cleverer film continually sneak in lines from Shakespeare’s plays already, I’d have been much more amused by the Doctor’s quoting spree. Oh crap, I’ve fallen out of character. DIE HUMAN. That’s better. ↩
  3. Unlike the highly amusing novels by the same author. I was hoping for something with the spark of The Romance of Crime. Gah, there I go again. Let’s just say that footnotes don’t count. ↩
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It's political correctness gone mad. — The Doctor

This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. It concerns such pressing issues as , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “The Shakespeare Code”


  1. Shannon
    April 27th, 2007 at 3:35 am

    If it helps, when I saw the episode I interpreted their name as “Carrier Knights” which sounded much creepier.. knights out to destroy us all. Its still rather weak, though, I agree.

    I quite enjoyed the Shakespeare stuff – especially “57 academics just punched the air!” – CRACKER!! But to call the episode any good on the whole, you’d just have to pretend the villains didn’t exist at all. They were atrocious. Though, I imagine that if I were 8 years old, they would be OUTSTANDING!

    One of my favourite bits was “expelliarmus!!” so perhaps I am an 8 year-old on the inside…


  2. Tom
    April 27th, 2007 at 6:47 am

    Mmmmm, I meant to point out this story’s Wikipedia page, which points out all the clever references — and the 57 academics line is by far the cleverest. But they were atrocious villains. What frustrates me is how many cool ideas there were behind the villains that never got explored because they were faffing about on broomsticks and such. Hence the review.

    “Carrier Knights” does indeed sound marginally better.

    I liked the first Harry Potter reference more than the second one. If you’re going to have Shakespeare save the day, then let him get the last word in. Poor bugger.

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