YMMV / Doctor Who S29 E2 "The Shakespeare Code"

• Alternative Joke Interpretation: The Doctor telling Martha that he cried upon reading the end of the last Harry Potter book takes on a different context when one remembers that, thanks to the events of "Aliens of London" the show's "present day" is actually a year ahead of the real world. To viewers at the time, the line can be read as the Doctor teasing Martha, as well as the viewer, with the fact that he's already read the then-fourthcoming, and highly-anticipated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (published three months after the episode's broadcast). Once Fridge Logic sets in, we realise that Martha would, in fact already be in on how the book ended, since she should actually hail from 2008, not the broadcast year of 2007. Thus, the tease becomes directed strictly at the audience.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: 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.
• Ass Pull: The It Only Works Once explanation is solely so that the plot isn't resolved within minutes and to keep the Carrionites a viable threat. The handwave is so transparent that it makes the trope's use obvious.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The joke about the Doctor being a fan of J. K. Rowling has aged rather badly since Rowling started airing her controversial views on gender identity in 2020 (views Tennant, in contrast, would vocally condemn). To make things worse, this episode was written by Gareth Roberts, who has also come under fire for transphobia.
  • The Doctor brushing off Martha's concerns about racism aged rather badly too, especially when it's compared to how in "Thin Ice" the Twelfth Doctor actually adressed his own black companion's concerns upon arriving in Regency England more tactfully, and in "Rosa" the Thirteenth Doctor actually got roped in the Rosa Parks bus incident and treated it with the seriousness expected for the incident.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After he left Doctor Who, David Tennant went on to play the main character in several highly successful Shakespeare-productions such as the title character in Hamlet and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing.
  • This also wouldn’t be the last time David Tennant visited Shakespeare at the Globe.
• Narm: Shakespeare being possessed. The witches have scary potential and they use scary puppets, but they control Shakespeare by blowing an acid-green gas (how did he not see it?) into his room, which he inhales up one nostril. The possessed man then begins writing, staring straight ahead with his mouth clamped shut. It looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Many hardcore Martha fans will never forgive Ten for the "Rose would know" line.
  • To a lesser extent, the Doctor blithely waving off Martha's worries about being a black person in a far less enlightened time got quite a bit of criticism - however, later in the same season, "Human Nature/The Family of Blood" addressed it at some length. Certainly, it eventually got an Author's Saving Throw in "Thin Ice" where the Twelfth Doctor takes Bill's similar concerns very seriously, while "Rosa", an episode that would revolve entirely around the Montgomery bus boycotts of the 1950s, focused on period racism altogether.

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