I didn’t get a chance to review The Shakespeare Code last week, although I really wanted to. I had a big problem with that episode of Doctor Who. I’d seen it before.

Let me give you some clues:

• The Doctor and assistant travel to the past.
• They meet a major literary figure.
• Plot centres around aliens who want to subvert the Earth for their own end.
• These aliens appear as a supernatural phenomena.

Not clear yet? Well, in Series 1 of our beloved, revamped Doctor Who, there was an episode called The Unquiet Dead. In this episode, The Doctor and Rose travel back in time and meet Charles Dickens. At the same time, an alien species called the Gelth are trying to use a cross dimensional rip to cross over to Earth and take over the world.

These Gelth appear - in the lingo of Dickensian-era Cardiff - as ghosts.

So, in The Shakespeare Code, The Doctor and shiny new assistant Martha travel back in time. To Shakespeare-era London no less.

Guess what? At the same time, an alien species called the Carrionites (who appear as witches) are trying to subvert Shakespeare’s magical words in order to….open up some kind of cross-dimensional rip and let loose their species upon the world!

Anyone else feel a bit ripped off right now?