Sunday, June 29, 2008

Greatest Cliffhanger Yet?

Russell T Davies has got us all by the balls. He knows it, and we know it. With Sarah Jane about to be EXTERMINATED, Gwen and Ianto about to be EXTERMINATED and the Doctor seemingly about to be REGENERATED, the cliffhanger to The Stolen Earth - TO BE CONTINUED - lead to much analyzing and wonder, the like of which the Kasterborous Forum has never seen before.

Yes, the search for answers brought a helluva lot of people to Kasterborous.com on Saturday evening, where Doctor Who fans young and old discussed how on earth the Doctor and co would get out of this one, but mostly needing answers to the question "Is David Tennant leaving?!"

Of course, we don't know. Not really, 100% certainly with no chance of the wool being pulled over our eyes. I mean, over the years we've built a few links, and know people who know people. You wouldn't believe some of the secrets we've kept in the last 3 years.

But this time - it's just not clear.

We'll look back on this and laugh in a few weeks, and applaud how RTD and co hoodwinked us. Or we'll discuss the success with which James Nesbit has made the role his own in such a short space of time...

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Darkness is Coming....

I have to confess: I am wetting myself with excitement over the season 30/Series 4 finale.

Regular readers will know that I'm not one to get all over excited, emotional and generally "OH MY GOD!" about Doctor Who, with a few rare exceptions.

Yet with Rusty Lee Davidson raising his game terrifically in the past few weeks, and a set of teasers that would make the most ardent Who non believer curious, I can honestly say that I am ready, as well as slightly fearful.

After all, beyond the wonderful "EXTERMINATE" trailer - do they do awards for these things? - The Stolen Earth and Journey's End, that is effectively it for Davies and the Doctor Who era 2005-2009. A handful of specials that may or may not have direct input from the big man aside, we're approaching the end of an era, folks.

While they state of 2009 is still up in the air, we'll refrain from providing a detailed retrospection of The Davies Era of Doctor Who. Instead, let's put things in perspective - he had the balls to do it his way, regardless of what fans like me, fans like Mad Larry and fans like the fiercely anti-gay mob on rec.arts.drwho felt, said and wrote on the matter.

There is little more impressive than someone sticking to their guns.

Monday, June 23, 2008

The New Team

I'm not talking about the Doctor, Donna, Rose, Martha, Jack, Sarah, Mickey, Ianto, Gwen, and whoever else should turn up in the next few weeks.

No, I'm talking about the new team here at Kasterborous.com!

That's right, hot on the heels of our warm and functional new design, we've made some editorial changes too.

First off, we've got the news; no longer the realm of "Christian Cawley and his RTD-baiting" (a someone nicely put it), a four-man team of Brian A. Terranova, Anthony Dry, Simon R Mills (of Kopic's Doctor Who News Service) and newcomer Chris Davids all guided by myself will bring you the latest Doctor Who, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures news.

Next up, say hello to Nick Brown - he's a regular contributor whose articles have been tickling our readers for some months now. Basically he's so good, that when he writes an article, I publish it.

And finally - with just two weeks of Doctor Who remaining for a good 18 months at least, look out for a distinct gear change on Kasterborous as we revisit classic Doctor Who in a series of articles over the coming months...

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Redesign!

Let me let you into a little secret - Kasterborous has been redesigned! I know, it's amazing isn't it, you could barely tell. In fact I had to be told by text message by Messrs Dry and Lum pointing out the differences while I was away visiting London Village last weekend.

(Incidentally we stumbled across a small revue where something called Spamalot was playing. Very funny. Had that Jim Robinson off of Neighbours in it. But anyway...)

This isn't the first time Kasterborous has been redesigned, of course. Oh no. This on the right is Kasterborous v3.1 - a development of the very similar looking v3, but with added Torchwood goodness. This version premiered in 2006, and we've been pretty much stuck with it for quite some time - initial plans for a revision began around a year ago, but time constraints through work and all that other rubbish sadly got in the way.



Now on the right is Kasterborous v3 - very similar, but you can see where the differences are. Love that pic of Troughton and the Cybermen!

However before the sexy blue number there were others...





Kasterborous v2.1 - now there's a new one for many of you! In principle very similar to v3, it was very pale, but a good showcase for Anthony Dry's artwork. When Kasterborous started, we gave it a simple mission statement - "rant and draw". I would rant and Anthony would draw. It's worked pretty well over time with more ranting from me leading to a lack of drawing, but I digress.





Kasterborous v2 is when it all started happening, really - with a database-driven website we could achieve so much more. Excellent piece of work by Mr Dry in the top left there too - you don't get many Tom Baker pics out of him, let me tell you.





In late 2004, v1.2 was launched and already Anthony was working on v2. The reason? I was very dissatisfied with the way news was handled on the existing websites, all parrot-like repetition with very little - if any - opinion. I mean that approach is fine for a lot of people; after all, how many of us have a proper good look behind the news in any subject? So the brown became white. Of course before the brown...





...We had the green.

In these days I didn't know much about web design - it was all magic to me. As such I thought that green looked ace, and that Anthony Dry was the cleverest man in the world. It does look bloody awful though, looking at it again now.

Kasterborous v1, so the official story goes, came about following a chance meeting between Anthony Dry and me, Christian Cawley, in the Outpost Gallifrey forum. Of course, official stories are rarely true. Anthony, Terra and myself were of course there at the beginning of Doctor Who - in fact, you could say that we founded Doctor Who fandom, way back in 1964...

Monday, June 02, 2008

Pest Control Winners

Our Pest Control competition closed on Saturday, Midnight UK time, and I would first of all like to thank everyone who took part, and for all of your comments in support of Kasterborous - it means a lot to all of us!

The answer to the question "Who destroyed Gallifrey first - Russell T Davies or Peter Angelhides" was, of course, Peter Angelhides, who with Steve Cole wrote The Ancestor Cell in 2000 (which featured the Eighth Doctor resorting to the apparentaly permanent destruction of Gallifrey in order to thwart the Faction Paradox).

The whole competition was a very nice gift to us from a very charming lady at BBC Audiobooks, of course, so many thanks to them!

For the full list of winners, visit the Kasterborous forum

Thanks again to everyone who took part!

Sunday, June 01, 2008

podKast 7

podKast 7, starring Christian Cawley and Brian A Terranova, is now available to listen to via The Fanzone, or the Forum.

Since the very first podKast, Christian and Brian have interview various characters from Doctor Who such as the Master, and Omega/Eldrad. They've spoken to the man who continued to deny that Daleks could fly (until one flew and EXTERMINATED him), and been waited on by a Slitheen butler named Gerald who later died in a freak fish n chip accident.

Recorded in the depths of Kasterborous Towers, the podKasts are strange, crazy and skewed looks at the world of Doctor Who fandom, peppered with some coherent chat about the show and recent episodes.

If you haven't tuned in yet, download your first podKast with a K today!