There have been a large number of companionless stories as of late. There was Valhalla and then there was The Death Collectors and then there was Frozen Time and now there is this story. You may notice a pattern emerging and that is all the stories being mentioned are Seventh Doctor stories and this is largely because he works just as well with companions as he does without. Kingdom of Silver is a story is different because it features a familiar monster. In this story the Doctor travels to Tasak. The story is quite a good one as it tells of a civilisation that is progressing and using technology that is really evil. It turns out that the technology comes from Cybermen who have been in hibernation and have been woken up. It is a story that works well in a three part situation and I like three part stories because it means that you don’t have padding on the story which can at times be frustrating. Cybermen are the shows second most popular monster and perhaps they should be ahead of the Daleks because essentially the Cybermen are human but with just robotic parts instead of human parts like a heart and lungs etc. Whenever they appear in Big Finish plays they are always well used. The 2002 story Spare Parts in one of the best stories that they have ever done and whenever they appear they are always well used. The use of the Cybermen in this story was just right and they were used in a simple yet effective way. In many respects that is what makes this story work really well. Kingdom of Silver wasn’t complicated as I feared you knew what was happening and it was a simple solution to the conclusion of the story.
Slyvester McCoy was very good in this story. He seems to work better when he hasn’t got any companions. He does work well with Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier but I think when the Doctor hasn’t got a companion to worry about then he hasn’t got any complications or any emotional drama to have to deal with on top of what is going on. What has worked really well in this story, Valhalla, Frozen Time and The Death Collectors is how he quickly creates chemistry with his temporary companion in those stories. The biggest name apart from McCoy was Terry Molloy who most fans of classic who will know as the third actor to play Davros from 1983-1988. He is credited with giving Davros the maniacal aspect to his character that is clearly been carried over with Julian Bleech in 2008. He has appeared in several stories for Big Finish over the years but this is the only time that I recall he gets to play a character that isn’t Davros. In this story Malloy plays Magus Riga who I imagine is some sort of old professor who is coming to the end of his life. Neil Roberts plays Temeter in this story and is one of the most vital parts of this story. In this story it was Temeter who was reluctant to believe the Doctor but soon came on side but it was his relationship with Sara that was somewhat predictable but added something to the story. Another important member of the story is Sara as played by Kate Terrance and she forms a great relationship with Temeter which will be important in a certain spin-off which is being planned for late 2009. Other characters work really well in the story including James George as Merel, Bunny Reed as Ardith, Holly King as Etin and of course Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Cybermen.
This story isn’t flawless. The cliffhangers in this story were really quite weak. The cliffhanger should really give you an incentive to carry on listening like you would get when watching the TV series. Of course we are going to carry on listening because we have it all in one package but imagine if we had to wait a week there would be no real incentive to tune in. Having said that it was the only real niggling thing about this story which is quite surprising. With single part stories in the past they have tended to be pointless. This is due to my opinion that 25 minute single part stories just don’t work cause you cant tell a story in such a short amount of time. The only exception to the rule is Urban Myths which was entertaining. Keepsake was actually quite good. The thing that I noticed straight away from that it didn’t really have anything to do with Kingdom of Silver except that it featured Temeter and Sara. Listening to the extras it was a prologue for the second series of the Cyberman spin-off. The story was well constructed and well acted. It looks like the second series is going to be very good if they are going to keep Temeter and Sara as they are because there is so much potential for they characters and it’ll be great to hear them again.
James Swallow has written several stories over the last few years including Singularity (2005) and the Companion Chronicles story Old Soldiers. Those stories were not what I would class as top stories but that is not to say that they are poor. With this story Swallow has produced his best script that had all the drama and enjoyment that you would expect from a Cybermen story. Ken Bentley & Nicholas Briggs took turns in directing these two plays and to be honest their just as good as the other. I suspect that Briggs directed Keepsake because of the ties with his spin-off series and so he knows what he wants from it. Overall this was a good release with a good plot and cast, it was nice to see a ‘three plus one’ release that worked together and does show to me that this works however this is only the second one since they did these that this has happened. What I think they should do is to make the single part story slightly longer, maybe 30 minutes or even 35 minutes.
Slyvester McCoy was very good in this story. He seems to work better when he hasn’t got any companions. He does work well with Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier but I think when the Doctor hasn’t got a companion to worry about then he hasn’t got any complications or any emotional drama to have to deal with on top of what is going on. What has worked really well in this story, Valhalla, Frozen Time and The Death Collectors is how he quickly creates chemistry with his temporary companion in those stories. The biggest name apart from McCoy was Terry Molloy who most fans of classic who will know as the third actor to play Davros from 1983-1988. He is credited with giving Davros the maniacal aspect to his character that is clearly been carried over with Julian Bleech in 2008. He has appeared in several stories for Big Finish over the years but this is the only time that I recall he gets to play a character that isn’t Davros. In this story Malloy plays Magus Riga who I imagine is some sort of old professor who is coming to the end of his life. Neil Roberts plays Temeter in this story and is one of the most vital parts of this story. In this story it was Temeter who was reluctant to believe the Doctor but soon came on side but it was his relationship with Sara that was somewhat predictable but added something to the story. Another important member of the story is Sara as played by Kate Terrance and she forms a great relationship with Temeter which will be important in a certain spin-off which is being planned for late 2009. Other characters work really well in the story including James George as Merel, Bunny Reed as Ardith, Holly King as Etin and of course Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Cybermen.
This story isn’t flawless. The cliffhangers in this story were really quite weak. The cliffhanger should really give you an incentive to carry on listening like you would get when watching the TV series. Of course we are going to carry on listening because we have it all in one package but imagine if we had to wait a week there would be no real incentive to tune in. Having said that it was the only real niggling thing about this story which is quite surprising. With single part stories in the past they have tended to be pointless. This is due to my opinion that 25 minute single part stories just don’t work cause you cant tell a story in such a short amount of time. The only exception to the rule is Urban Myths which was entertaining. Keepsake was actually quite good. The thing that I noticed straight away from that it didn’t really have anything to do with Kingdom of Silver except that it featured Temeter and Sara. Listening to the extras it was a prologue for the second series of the Cyberman spin-off. The story was well constructed and well acted. It looks like the second series is going to be very good if they are going to keep Temeter and Sara as they are because there is so much potential for they characters and it’ll be great to hear them again.
James Swallow has written several stories over the last few years including Singularity (2005) and the Companion Chronicles story Old Soldiers. Those stories were not what I would class as top stories but that is not to say that they are poor. With this story Swallow has produced his best script that had all the drama and enjoyment that you would expect from a Cybermen story. Ken Bentley & Nicholas Briggs took turns in directing these two plays and to be honest their just as good as the other. I suspect that Briggs directed Keepsake because of the ties with his spin-off series and so he knows what he wants from it. Overall this was a good release with a good plot and cast, it was nice to see a ‘three plus one’ release that worked together and does show to me that this works however this is only the second one since they did these that this has happened. What I think they should do is to make the single part story slightly longer, maybe 30 minutes or even 35 minutes.
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