• The setting/concept. The planet Tasak is divided into "Houses" of influence, something somewhat akin to the old Italian city-states though presumably on a planet-wide basis. They are slowly emerging from centuries of conflict and entering their Industrial Age, making great strides not only in engineering but also medicine, with the development of a miracle medicine called "The Silver" that seems capable of healing up wounds and curing previously fatal illnesses, and even halting or even reversing the aging process. But crucially, despite their relatively "primitive" level of technological development they are also fully aware that they are a part of a greater cosmos and that there are planets and alien races out there so far beyond their own level of technology as to be almost Gods. One such alien visitor is being kept a "guest" of the most prominent house on the planet, as they try to convince her to lend her advanced knowledge to their attempts to understand an ancient piece of technology that is the source of their recent technological breakthroughs. It's a really neat concept and background that I wouldn't have minded seeing explored more deeply, the simultaneous pride in their society's accomplishments while being fully aware of their own rather "backwards" place in a greater inter-galactic society they have no part in is really interesting - they know that the issues and concerns that dominate their society are small potatoes but that doesn't lessen their value or importance.
  
  
• The questions on morality/the nature of humanity. Tasak's history is one of warfare, but the leading House has successfully rallied the rest of the world into putting aside their differences (for the most part) and take great pride in their hard-fought for peace. But that doesn't make them Saints, there are disagreements within the House itself over the best way forward, and even the leader Magus Riga (played by Terry "Davros" Molloy!) is still perfectly willing to hold an alien visitor under guard as a "guest" and refuse to let her leave or communicate with her own people until she agrees to provide her expertise for their own benefit. When the dangers of the Silver are first explained to him his reaction is fury because it calls into question not only the benefits of what they're doing but shits all over the very real accomplishments of peace and the advance of knowledge he rightfully takes great pride in. Meanwhile, the alien visitors are revealed to be something rather unexpected themselves, but their own humanity comes shining through in spite of that while the humans (well, Tasakians) are losing their own as the Silver takes hold. One Tasak official's desire for power (of course) leads to the loss of everything he was seeking to gain, which of course is the whole Cyberman story all over again, while the "inhuman" visitors are prepared to sacrifice and die in order to save each other out of love.
  
  
• Keepsake. This is one of those audios where the story wraps up in three episodes and ends with a mostly standalone piece. This one tells the story of the Doctor picking up parts for the TARDIS in an intergalactic scrapyard and coming across a small, simple robot that ends up detailing the story of the two alien visitors to Tasak after the events of Kingdom of Silver wrapped up. It's a rather charming and sweet piece with one major thing standing against it (more below), and it furthers those same ideals from above about the nature of humanity and the question of whether survival is worth anything if you lose what you were in the process.
  

• It's.... A CYBERMAN! - While it's pretty much in keeping with how the show almost always did it anyway, there's something rather eye-rolling about the episode one cliffhanger being the "shock" revelation of a Cyberman when the story is called,"Kingdom of Silver" and features a picture of a Cyberman right on the cover!
  
  
• The reliance on background knowledge/continuity. This story actually has a strong background to do with the standalone Cybermen audio series which is all well and good if you've listened to that, but if you haven't (and I have not) then a lot of the big moments fall flat. The Orion war, the androids, the scavenger hunt for Cybermen technology, it's all presented as an integral part of the universe but... that's it. It's just laid out there as,"Well this is important because of the Orion War and of course you know about all the poo poo going down between the androids and the humans!" and... I don't. Keepsake in particular suffers from this as it's effectively just an advertisement for the ongoing Cybermen series, and while it's very touching and sweet in places and works as a nice epilogue KoS, it also has blatant sections where characters basically say,"Wow I wonder what happened next with <x> and where <y> went and how it all resolved!?!" and it's clumsy and a little irritating.
  
  
• The three episode compression. Keepsake is a nice epilogue but it comes at the cost of a compressed three episode structure for the main story. This means some stuff gets rushed through, in particular the reaction to the revelation of the Cybermen - it actually would have been rather interesting to see the Magus/population actually initially buy into the whole thing, since the Cybermen actually do make a conscious effort to put a facade on their desire for mass-conversion, couching everything in terms that fall neatly into line with what we already know to be the Magus' goals. But because there is so little time, the arrival of the Cybermen immediately kicks off revulsion and fear and a desire to fight back and before you know it they've been destroyed and the threat is over almost as soon as it began. Nothing really gets a chance to breathe because it all has to be wrapped up so quickly.
  

The_Doctor fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Aug 22, 2016