Dr Who Discussion: The Shakespeare Code
Some questions and observations about the episode, including lit/drama refs wherever I can identify them. Feel free to comment on all or any that interest you; also to suggest comms that might like it linked.
Totally spoilerific for episode 2.
QUESTIONS:
1. When Martha wants to know how the TARDIS travels through time, the Doctor says, "That's it. Take the fun and mystery out of everything." And yet most of the time he wants to approach mysterious phenomena with reason (as in, "I'll tell you what, then - don't step on any butterflies.") Is what he says here just a convenient excuse for not having to explain what the writers can't, or is it consistent with another side of him?
2. Martha is better educated and so less impressionable than Rose. "When we get back you can tell everyone you've met Shakespeare." "Then I can get sectioned!" (i.e. for Americans, that means committed. As in, the men in white jackets coming for you.)
Rose was our "eyes" on the story, because we were new to it and so was she. Is Martha, and if so does her new attitude make a difference? Or is the Doctor now our eyes?
3. Why can Shakespeare see through (or rather, not read) the psychic paper? Also, in the same speech, when he says to Martha "Isn't [blackamore] a word we use nowadays?", has he already understood she's from the future?
4. How do you react to present-day London being characterised as "Freedonia"?
5. Shakespeare doesn't fall for the Doctor's excuse for his "old eyes" (I do a lot of reading), but he agrees "That's what I do." He has less trouble discerning that the Doctor is giving "a constant performance" - after all, he hung around the theatre all his working life.
What are we supposed to make of the repeated comparisons between the [non-human] Doctor and "the most human human that's ever been"?
6. To take up Martha's thread, if there can be time travel, why can't this be witchcraft? (Serious question.)
7. "It's staring me right in the face and I can't see it." Has Martha seriously fallen for the Doctor already, or has Freema just heard Billie Piper's nickname for DT?
8. "You can change people's minds just with words in this place [the theatre]. Now if you exaggerate that..." Where is the Doctor going with this before Martha interrupts?
9. What do you make of the references to The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter, as the witches' evil schemes play out?
10. Lilith: "There is no name. Why would a man hide his title in such despair?" I haven't seen any DW before RTD. Can anyone explain to me in 25 words or less how the Doctor came not to have a name?
11. "His son perished. The grief of a genius. Grief without measure. Madness enough to allow us entrance." "The grief of genius" is one popular reading of Hamlet's madness - but this description is also very close to J.K Rowling's explanation of her Dementors as a representation of clinical depression.
Given the parallels we've been seeing between the Doctor and Shakespeare, why is it that Rose's name makes him more, not less, impervious to the Carrionites?
12. The Carrionites' plan is to "lead the human race back into the old ways of blood and magic". Why would this be a disaster from the Doctor's viewpoint?
13. Lilith: ...seeing my enemy has such a handsome shape. Doctor: Oh, that's one form of magic that's definitely not going to work on me.
Depending on what you said in answer to #12, how do you see this reading of Sex and the Doctor? Or is he just untemptable because of his love for Rose?
14. "Now begins the millennium of blood!" Are we sure the Carrionites didn't win?? Things weren't looking too good, say, around 1916 or 1945.
15. Does Martha really refuse to kiss Shakespeare because of his breath, or because she dislikes hearing that the Doctor may never kiss her?
16. My bad, but did anyone else think Melanie, Lindsay and JR when introduced to the Witch with Two Mothers? (More seriously, are we supposed to read anything by the fact that the Carrionites appear to be an exclusively female society? "Men are but puppets" and all that?)
OBSERVATIONS AND REFS:
A. Lilith is a name associated with demonic mythical women going back to Mesopotamia. A quick look in Google tells me it seems to be popular latterly in feminist circles, I guess because in addition to being evil she is also powerful.
B. Martha changes history when she teaches the audience to shout "author", but she doesn't realise that it means she HAS now "stepped on a butterfly".
C. The Doctor's definition of "the genius" is "the most human human that's ever been". The thing I really adore about RTD's Dr Who is that it isn't, like a lot of sci-fi, an exploration of the inhuman. It is, over and over, an affirmation of the capacities of human beings.
D. It's true what the Doctor says about Love's Labours Won. It is a rumoured lost play.
E. In Shakespeare's "oh god a fanboy" speech, love how "no photos" becomes "no, you can't have yourself sketched with me".
F. "This lot have still got one foot in the dark ages. If I tell them the truth they'll panic and think it was witchcraft." "OK, what was it then?" "Witchcraft." Hee!
G. "It's all a bit Harry Potter." "Wait till you read Book 7." I know that's a time travel joke, but it has an extra level of comedy for those of us watching DW from outside the UK, where nobody else has seen The Shakespeare Code yet either. Is the Doctor really a time-traveller, or does he just have fabulous Torrents?
H. I like Shakespeare's natty skull-with-candle ornament (Macbeth: "Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.")
I. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light". Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night."
J. Martha: And you've written about witches. Shakespeare: I have? When was that?
Not till Macbeth in 1606.
K. Doctor: "Oh. 57 academics just punched the air." There is a long, ongoing debate about whether Shakespeare was bisexual or not. (Many of the sonnets are clearly love poems addressed to a young man. The question is simply whether they are "real" or just fictions, like the plays.) We all knew which side RTD was going to come down on, though, didn't we?
L. Shakespeare's son Hamnet died in 1596, at the age of about 10. Two daughters survived. It is widely believed that Hamlet (1601) is, indeed, Shakespeare working out his grief over this.
While I enjoy the "bit pretentious?" joke, "To be or not to be" is really just overused. It really is pretty much the simplest way you could possibly say "Should I suicide or not?"
M. "The Winter's Tale" is one of Shakespeare's final plays. It's about the redemption of broken spirits, but there are no witches in it.
N. "Poor Peter" talks like "Poor Tom", who is the mad character the good Edgar pretends to be in King Lear (1605). Poor Tom always talks about himself in the third person like this.
O. "The play's the thing [wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King]" is the end of the "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" soliloquy from Hamlet.
P. "Once more unto the breach" is from Henry V. Shakespeare has a short memory, because he wrote that in 1599!
Q. Love the short-lived excitement of "End of the world" Guy. This is an episode where everyone gets to have some fun!
R. Lilith: Then watch this world become a blasted heath. "Blasted heath" is from King Lear.
S. Shakespeare: And I say, A heart for a heart and a deer for a deer. Martha: I don't get it.
That's because she doesn't know hart was another word for deer (I think it was a male deer but anyway). The line should read "A heart for a hart and a deer for a dear."
T. Sycorax was the witch who was Caliban's mother in The Tempest (1611).
U. Even though all the copies of the play went up in smoke, of course, the actors already know it by heart. However, we'll overlook that. 'Course, they never would be able to stage it again because the audience would boo when it didn't get the legendary special effects.
V. "A sonnet for my dark lady." Apart from the sonnets for the young man, there is another set written for a "dark lady". She could've just had dark hair, or she could've been black - we don't know and there is speculation either way. She could've been entirely made up. "Shall I compare thee" was, however, written for the young man. The dark lady was a fiery number, definitely not "temperate".
Totally spoilerific for episode 2.
QUESTIONS:
1. When Martha wants to know how the TARDIS travels through time, the Doctor says, "That's it. Take the fun and mystery out of everything." And yet most of the time he wants to approach mysterious phenomena with reason (as in, "I'll tell you what, then - don't step on any butterflies.") Is what he says here just a convenient excuse for not having to explain what the writers can't, or is it consistent with another side of him?
2. Martha is better educated and so less impressionable than Rose. "When we get back you can tell everyone you've met Shakespeare." "Then I can get sectioned!" (i.e. for Americans, that means committed. As in, the men in white jackets coming for you.)
Rose was our "eyes" on the story, because we were new to it and so was she. Is Martha, and if so does her new attitude make a difference? Or is the Doctor now our eyes?
3. Why can Shakespeare see through (or rather, not read) the psychic paper? Also, in the same speech, when he says to Martha "Isn't [blackamore] a word we use nowadays?", has he already understood she's from the future?
4. How do you react to present-day London being characterised as "Freedonia"?
5. Shakespeare doesn't fall for the Doctor's excuse for his "old eyes" (I do a lot of reading), but he agrees "That's what I do." He has less trouble discerning that the Doctor is giving "a constant performance" - after all, he hung around the theatre all his working life.
What are we supposed to make of the repeated comparisons between the [non-human] Doctor and "the most human human that's ever been"?
6. To take up Martha's thread, if there can be time travel, why can't this be witchcraft? (Serious question.)
7. "It's staring me right in the face and I can't see it." Has Martha seriously fallen for the Doctor already, or has Freema just heard Billie Piper's nickname for DT?
8. "You can change people's minds just with words in this place [the theatre]. Now if you exaggerate that..." Where is the Doctor going with this before Martha interrupts?
9. What do you make of the references to The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter, as the witches' evil schemes play out?
10. Lilith: "There is no name. Why would a man hide his title in such despair?" I haven't seen any DW before RTD. Can anyone explain to me in 25 words or less how the Doctor came not to have a name?
11. "His son perished. The grief of a genius. Grief without measure. Madness enough to allow us entrance." "The grief of genius" is one popular reading of Hamlet's madness - but this description is also very close to J.K Rowling's explanation of her Dementors as a representation of clinical depression.
Given the parallels we've been seeing between the Doctor and Shakespeare, why is it that Rose's name makes him more, not less, impervious to the Carrionites?
12. The Carrionites' plan is to "lead the human race back into the old ways of blood and magic". Why would this be a disaster from the Doctor's viewpoint?
13. Lilith: ...seeing my enemy has such a handsome shape. Doctor: Oh, that's one form of magic that's definitely not going to work on me.
Depending on what you said in answer to #12, how do you see this reading of Sex and the Doctor? Or is he just untemptable because of his love for Rose?
14. "Now begins the millennium of blood!" Are we sure the Carrionites didn't win?? Things weren't looking too good, say, around 1916 or 1945.
15. Does Martha really refuse to kiss Shakespeare because of his breath, or because she dislikes hearing that the Doctor may never kiss her?
16. My bad, but did anyone else think Melanie, Lindsay and JR when introduced to the Witch with Two Mothers? (More seriously, are we supposed to read anything by the fact that the Carrionites appear to be an exclusively female society? "Men are but puppets" and all that?)
OBSERVATIONS AND REFS:
A. Lilith is a name associated with demonic mythical women going back to Mesopotamia. A quick look in Google tells me it seems to be popular latterly in feminist circles, I guess because in addition to being evil she is also powerful.
B. Martha changes history when she teaches the audience to shout "author", but she doesn't realise that it means she HAS now "stepped on a butterfly".
C. The Doctor's definition of "the genius" is "the most human human that's ever been". The thing I really adore about RTD's Dr Who is that it isn't, like a lot of sci-fi, an exploration of the inhuman. It is, over and over, an affirmation of the capacities of human beings.
D. It's true what the Doctor says about Love's Labours Won. It is a rumoured lost play.
E. In Shakespeare's "oh god a fanboy" speech, love how "no photos" becomes "no, you can't have yourself sketched with me".
F. "This lot have still got one foot in the dark ages. If I tell them the truth they'll panic and think it was witchcraft." "OK, what was it then?" "Witchcraft." Hee!
G. "It's all a bit Harry Potter." "Wait till you read Book 7." I know that's a time travel joke, but it has an extra level of comedy for those of us watching DW from outside the UK, where nobody else has seen The Shakespeare Code yet either. Is the Doctor really a time-traveller, or does he just have fabulous Torrents?
H. I like Shakespeare's natty skull-with-candle ornament (Macbeth: "Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.")
I. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light". Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night."
J. Martha: And you've written about witches. Shakespeare: I have? When was that?
Not till Macbeth in 1606.
K. Doctor: "Oh. 57 academics just punched the air." There is a long, ongoing debate about whether Shakespeare was bisexual or not. (Many of the sonnets are clearly love poems addressed to a young man. The question is simply whether they are "real" or just fictions, like the plays.) We all knew which side RTD was going to come down on, though, didn't we?
L. Shakespeare's son Hamnet died in 1596, at the age of about 10. Two daughters survived. It is widely believed that Hamlet (1601) is, indeed, Shakespeare working out his grief over this.
While I enjoy the "bit pretentious?" joke, "To be or not to be" is really just overused. It really is pretty much the simplest way you could possibly say "Should I suicide or not?"
M. "The Winter's Tale" is one of Shakespeare's final plays. It's about the redemption of broken spirits, but there are no witches in it.
N. "Poor Peter" talks like "Poor Tom", who is the mad character the good Edgar pretends to be in King Lear (1605). Poor Tom always talks about himself in the third person like this.
O. "The play's the thing [wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King]" is the end of the "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" soliloquy from Hamlet.
P. "Once more unto the breach" is from Henry V. Shakespeare has a short memory, because he wrote that in 1599!
Q. Love the short-lived excitement of "End of the world" Guy. This is an episode where everyone gets to have some fun!
R. Lilith: Then watch this world become a blasted heath. "Blasted heath" is from King Lear.
S. Shakespeare: And I say, A heart for a heart and a deer for a deer. Martha: I don't get it.
That's because she doesn't know hart was another word for deer (I think it was a male deer but anyway). The line should read "A heart for a hart and a deer for a dear."
T. Sycorax was the witch who was Caliban's mother in The Tempest (1611).
U. Even though all the copies of the play went up in smoke, of course, the actors already know it by heart. However, we'll overlook that. 'Course, they never would be able to stage it again because the audience would boo when it didn't get the legendary special effects.
V. "A sonnet for my dark lady." Apart from the sonnets for the young man, there is another set written for a "dark lady". She could've just had dark hair, or she could've been black - we don't know and there is speculation either way. She could've been entirely made up. "Shall I compare thee" was, however, written for the young man. The dark lady was a fiery number, definitely not "temperate".