History Recap / DoctorWhoS29E2TheShakespeareCode

* [[ArtisticLicenseArt Artistic Licence – Art]]: Near the end of the episode, Will starts reciting a new poem for his "Dark Lady." The Dark Lady is a title given to one of the two recipients of Shakespeare's sonnets whose identities are still hotly debated, the other being a young man known as the Fair Youth. The sonnet he begins is the famous Sonnet 18, which was addressed to the Fair Youth, not the Dark Lady.

The one where the Queen [[OffWithHisHead wants the Doctor's head]].

-->'''Shakespeare:''' I got new ideas. Perhaps it is time for me to write about fathers and sons. In memory of my boy, my precious Hamnet.[[note]][[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamnet_Shakespeare Shakespeare's only son]] by his marriage to [[NamesTheSame Anne Hathaway]] died in August 1596, three years before the events of "The Shakespeare Code"[[/note]]\\

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: There were many complaints in online fandom about the episode suggesting there were black people living in England in William Shakespeare's time. In real life, Queen Elizabeth I wrote letters to the Mayor of London complaining about the "great numbers of Negars and Blackamoors" in the city.

* DeathBySex: The young man at the beginning is lured into the witch's house thinking he's seduced the beautiful young woman. He gets torn to shreds instead.

* ImmuneToMindControl: The psychic paper doesn't work on Shakespeare.

* NoodleIncident: Whatever got the Doctor to be named as Elizabeth's mortal enemy.

At Martha's instigation, Shakespeare comes out after the play to address the audience. The witches magic him into promising to perform the sequel, ''Love's Labour's Won'', '''tomorrow night'''. The Doctor, knowing that this play is a MissingEpisode, realizes something is afoot. The pair decides to stay the night at Shakespeare's inn and get to meet the dude. Shakespeare is a genius-level but bawdy empath, clever enough to be immune to psychic paper (although he does love the word "psychic"). He hits on Martha but blows it by constantly referencing her race. "It's {{political correctness gone mad}}", mutters the Doctor.

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: Shakespeare's attempts to flirt offend Martha because he keeps bringing up her skin colour as exotic (albeit using what, for the time, are very polite terms). The Doctor invokes the trope by name.

* ArbitrarySkepticism: The Doctor scoffs at the existence of witchcraft, but Martha reminds him that she just discovered that time travel is real.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Queen Elizabeth I in the end. While she really did have her faults, ordering her soldiers to murder a man on sight in her presence without a trial was not among them.

* IveNeverSeenAnythingLikeThisBefore: The Doctor quotes this trope while examining a man who apparently drowned on dry land. An odd example, since he actually has seen an identical death in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E2TheMindOfEvil The Mind of Evil]]".[[note]]Gareth Roberts was aware of this, but couldn't find a way of phrasing the line to include a CallBack that didn't sound overly clunky.[[/note]]

* RealityEnsues: A pretty companion meets a handsome, intelligent, and famous historical figure... and won't snog him because oral hygiene was somewhat lacking in those days.

But they're too late! At the play's end, two noblemen recite an odd invocation that allows the whole Carrionite race, [[SealedEvilInACan sealed off long ago]], to show up in the Globe. Shakespeare, the Doctor and Martha form an impromptu PowerTrio: Shakespeare improvises a counter-spell, flanked by the Doctor providing the right numbers and Martha providing "[[Literature/HarryPotter Expelliarmus!]]" The spell imprisons the witches in their own crystal ball and also destroys all copies of the play.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: There were many complaints in online fandom about the episode suggesting there were black people living in England in William Shakespeare's time. In real life, Queen Elizabeth I wrote letters to the Mayor of London complaining about the "great numbers of Negars and Blackamoors" in the city.

In the end, Martha is revealed to be the Dark Lady, the unknown (and speculated to be imaginary) African woman to whom Shakespeare wrote several sonnets (not including, however, the ''Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'' one, which he starts to recite to her). Oh, and he casually figures out that the Doctor is otherworldly and Martha is from the future. They are interrupted, though, by Queen Elizabeth I, who showed up to congratulate Shakespeare on his [[AllPartOfTheShow excellent special effects]]. A Whole Lot of Running ensues when it turns out that Elizabeth considers the Doctor her "sworn enemy" for [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor something he hasn't done yet]].

** Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethI turns up at the end, angry with the Doctor for something he hasn't done yet. What was it? [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime He married her]] [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor and ran off]].

** The reverse joke: the Queen turns up, sees the Doctor, and yells "My sworn enemy. OffWithHisHead!" with the Doctor having no idea what he'll do to upset her... which will not be revealed until "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]", a full six years of real-time later.

* {{Futureshadowing}}: We see Queen Elizabeth I stark raving mad at the Doctor nearly three years before he or the viewers [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime found out why]]. Turns out that in her past/his future, he marries her, robs her of her title of the Virgin Queen, then abandons her.
** Nearly [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor seven years later]], the full story is revealed. Ten married Elizabeth I, after proposing to her, thinking she was a [[ItMakesSenseInContext shapeshifting Zygon in disguise]]. After marrying her he left quickly, but because of the presence [[Creator/MattSmith of his future self]] he forgets exactly what happened.

-->'''The Doctor:''' [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor I can't wait to find out!]]

* PresentDayPast: An example of present-day ''future'' — the Doctor babbles happily about ''Literature/HarryPotter'', telling Martha that she's going to love getting to read the last book (which had not been released at that point and was at the time being heavily hyped). Problem is, ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' was released in July 2007 in real life, and Martha's "home" time period is early 2008.[[note]]Martha's home time isn't specifically stated — which is why the writers forgot — but following the episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon "Aliens of London"]], in which the Doctor tried to return Rose to the time she left and was a year out, all "present day" episodes must still be that year out, at least until [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead "Planet of the Dead"]]. There isn't a point where you can reverse this and say maybe a season took ''less'' than a year, because all the Christmas episodes from [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]] to [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned "Voyage of the Damned"]] take place on successive Christmases.[[/note]]

*** The Doctor tells Martha, "Wait until you read book 7. Oh, I cried." It's called book 7 simply because the book's title of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'' hadn't been announced. The fact the book ended up being an emotional read in real life was lucky guess on the part of the writer. It's also a bit of WritersCannotDoMath; the previous story was set in 2009, so for Martha the book would already be out.

Post-credits, enter the Doctor and Martha, off to the Globe Theatre to see ''Theatre/LovesLaboursLost''. Martha is concerned about [[ForWantOfANail stepping on a butterfly]] or encountering [[NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel old-timey racism]], but the Doctor shrugs these off. The Doctor riffs on the parallels between London then and now, including realizing a crazy doomsayer to "GlobalWarming". [[AccidentalAesop This isn't an attack on climate theory, though.]] It's just silly.

* MagicFromTechnology: Sort of. The Doctor points out that the Carrionites' powers only seem like magic because Earth's science is maths-derived, while the Carrionites instead learned how to [[WordsCanBreakMyBones manipulate words]].

* VoodooDoll: The Carrionites have two. The first one can be used on anyone so long as some of the intended victim's hair is attached, and is used by Lilith to drown Linley and attempt to kill the Doctor, who recognizes the doll as a "DNA replication module." Bloodtide later uses it to knock Shakespeare unconscious. The other one is a much more detailed puppet of Shakespeare, used when Lilith is making him write the last scene of the play the way they want it.

* VoodooDoll: The Carrionites have two. The first one can be used on anyone so long as some of the intended victim's hair is attached, and is used by Lilith to drown Linley and attempt to kill the Doctor. Bloodtide later uses it to knock Shakespeare unconscious. The other one is a much more detailed puppet of Shakespeare, used when Lilith is making him write the last scene of the play the way they want it. The Doctor recognizes it as a "DNA replication module."

* VoodooDoll: The Carrionites have two. The first one can be used on anyone so long as some of the intended victim's hair is attached, and is used by Lilith to drown Linley and attempt to kill the Doctor. Bloodtide later uses it to knock Shakespeare unconscious. The other one is a much more detailed puppet of Shakespeare, used when Lilith is making him write the last scene of the play the way they want it.

* InSpiteOfANail: Martha is afraid of altering history after landing in Elizabethan London. When bringing up the butterfly paradox, the Doctor says, "Tell you what: Don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you?"

* BiTheWay: Shakespeare is hinted at being this, leading the Doctor to quip that "fifty-seven academics just punched the air" (one of the series' many [[HistoricalInJoke Historical In-Jokes]], as more than a few historians speculate about this regarding the real Shakespeare — with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_57 Sonnet 57]] being part of their evidence).
-->'''The Doctor:''' Come on! We can all have a good flirt later.\\
'''Shakespeare:''' Is that a promise, Doctor?\\
'''The Doctor:''' Ooh, 57 academics just punched the air.

** When Shakespeare flirts with him, the Doctor's line about "57 academics" (see BiTheWay above) doesn't refer to a number of people, but to the Bard's Sonnet 57, which several Shakespeare scholars have interpreted as homoerotic.

* IveNeverSeenAnythingLikeThisBefore: The Doctor quotes this trope while examining a man who apparently drowned on dry land. An odd example, since he actually has seen an identical death in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E2TheMindOfEvil The Mind of Evil]]".

** Because of poor lighting, among other things, in this time period, plays were performed during the day. That was why theatres like the Globe had no roofs, so that the sun could light up the stage. It wasn't until much later that performances became a night-time affair.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Queen Elizabeth I in the end. While she really did have her faults, ordering her soldiers to murder a man on sight in her presence without a trial was not among them. [[spoiler:[[WomanScorned Then again, considering he'll marry her in the presence of his past and future selves, and then run off without even saying goodbye]]]]...