K9 and Company

Would you believe it? Not only is K9 back in Doctor Who this week but it seems he's finally getting his own show! And in a remarkable case of serendipity (qv The Green Death), we have a two-part interview with none other than Mat Irvine, the man charged not only with remote-controlling K9 but also knocking up visual FX for Doctor Who and Blake's 7 back in the 1970s, as well as various shows in the 1980s/1990s ("Red Dwarf" for one...).

Bearing in mind we've already interviewed Peter Purves (1960s companion Steven Taylor/Blue Peter presenter), artists such as Lee Sullivan and Andrew Skilleter, writers Mark Campbell and Jean-Marc Lofficier and the name on everybody's lips Barnaby Jones (in his house anyway), this is possibly the most exciting - and satisfying - pieces that Kasterborous has run since the "round-table" Adherents of Doctor Who back in July.

As a writer it's always good to get your teeth into some really good material, and even more so when it is uttered by real people who have made a living working on everyone's favourite television show. It took some time, and a new approach, and finally the interview is ready to be seen by the public - hopefully a lot easier to read than earlier pieces.

Mat has a lot to say on various issues such as the BBC Visual Effects Department, the "Space Race", K9 and modern Doctor Who as well as a few other more challenging questions - so much so in fact that we have had to split the interview in two.

Part One is live for your reading pleasure. Expect Part Two sometime before 7.20pm, Saturday night...

New Earth

Wasn't the best Doctor Who episode ever, sadly but I'm sure we'll all get over it. It's easy to take things personally when the show we all love doesn't follow the path that we might expect it to. Although frankly the 1996 TV Movie made more sense than what I watched last night... still 8.3 million viewers can't be wrong, can they?

So on to Tooth and Claw our attentions turn. The preview at the end of last night's Doctor Who was great. The TARDISODE is pretty fab too, and I would suggest that we'll see one of Russell T Davies' strongest episodes - and probably a better contender for series opener than New Earth would have been...

But no, I'm over it now. Having waited 4 months since the last episode of Doctor Who I think I can cope with another before the series starts in earnest. Because we are happy to have it back aren't we? And lucky. Very, very lucky.

And that dear friends will be the argument when a truly dire episode goes out and the BBC actually listen to the fans criticisms. It will be interesting to see how many tune in next week having regretted watching New Earth. As fans we have seen the best and worst of Doctor Who both as a TV show and as an issue.

It really isn't too much to ask that now the show is back they keep the quality consistent.

This is the bit where I say "He's back - and it's about time!" because frankly it is about time. 4 months without new Doctor Who is frankly too much after the treat of 2005.

Here we are, a little over 12 months later, with a now fully-fledged website and an ever-increasing audience . Kasterborous is something I'm massively proud of, and to be able to talk about Doctor Who as something current is simply fantastic!

So let's get ready for trips to the far future, to a parallel world, to 19th century Scotland and 17th century France, to the 1950s and beyond. We've only seen a slice of what's out there in the Rose's travels with the Doctor, and I am 100% confident that this series is going to be better than the last. I might even enjoy 13 episodes instead of the 12 I raved over last time.

Cap off time - I was wrong about Dalek, I admit it. Dont' get me wrong, I stand by what I said at the time. It made me uncomfortable having my perceptions of what makes a Dalek a Dalek played with in such a way. But on rewatching (plus the benefit of digital surround) the episode has everything. While I'm still not totally happy with the Doctor's reaction at the end - verring a bit too close to Resurrection of the Daleks for me, it is a powerful tale and like every other episode of the 2005 series (Charles Dickens, Father's Day, Aliens of London, Boom Town) asks what it is to be alive and to be human.

I have already tied myself to the sofa. I have installed the TV with an uninteruptible power supply. Nothing can stand in my way...

Low Key?

Is it me, or is it all a bit low key this year?

Certainly in the real world, I’ve seen no posters or phone booths or double page spreads in magazines. I’ve seen preview pieces in television magazines and I’ve seen the TARDISODE, the trailer for the download and of course the trailer for the new series. Just doesn’t seem as big this year…

And I guess there’s a reason for that. While at this stage last year we were thrilling over shots of the Doctor legging it from a fireball, this year we’ve got flying werewolves and cat nuns and Cybermen. The Doctor and Rose are now accepted, and the show doesn’t need blatant visual trickery to create a wonderful spectacle to entice new viewers like it did last year.

The update of the show is complete. The Doctor is firmly a part of the furniture in the BBC1 schedules once more. Not only that, but it’s about flaming time!

Seriously though – don’t bemoan the fact that promotion of Doctor Who doesn’t seem as prominent as it did last year. There’s new methods being used (TARDISODES, of course) and last years publicity campaign was all about bringing the show back after 16 years. He’s only been gone 3 and a half months this time – so just sit back and wait to enjoy it again.

‘Cause you haven’t seen it all…

FAQ

In a slight change from the regular programming, I’m going to be a good communicative chap and discuss Kasterborous’ news and article submissions policy. There are now a lot more of you reading this, so I hope to underline a few key points that should make things a lot clearer in the general scheme of things.

Articles

We have a mostly open policy on article submissions. Don’t get me wrong, I love coming up with new ideas and angles, and Brian A Terranova has written some wonderfully witty stuff (such as The Krau Timmin Interview). But new blood is always appreciated, so if you have an idea or concept for an article that you would like to write, or even if you would just like to suggest something Whovian for us to tackle, feel more than welcome to get in touch. Due to spamming issues, that will have to be via the Forum for the foreseeable future, but we should have a nice new email account sorted soonish.

Remember, an article on Kasterborous won’t make you famous. It won’t pay you any bills. But it will be accompanied by the artwork of one of our wonderful artistic contributors, and that’s what makes us a bit different, not just in online Who fandom, but on the WWW as a whole.

News

I’ll be frank. News submissions are rare. Unless we’ve had a press release sent by one of the magazines (the Doctor Who Adventures news being a case in point), then news has come from one of the following sources:

unitnews

Eye of Horus

Outpost Gallifrey

Kopic’s Doctor Who News (a great aggregation of Doctor Who-related RSS feeds)

emails from various bodies and organisations

Regularly checked news reports from The Sun, The Mirror, The Times, The Guardian, The Observer, icwales.co.uk, The Independent, bbc.co.uk, BBC Press Office, Digital Spy

Google News

Regular contributor Christopher Durie

Google News RSS Feeds

Some RSS sources of my own that are broadcast-related

Under no circumstances, however, would Kasterborous use news from other sources uncredited, nor have we ever intentionally done so. If you do happen to spot an error, however, do let us know.

And the trailer aired! And the fans all roared! And the Doctor asked "Think you've seen it all? Think again!"

And frankly it was spine-tingling. And since the trailer, the TARDISODE and the Press Launch I've wathed The Christmas Invasion and Father's Day. It's all happening again!

We've got two news items to run on Kasterborous; 3 new ones went live yesterday and they hardly have anything in them other than key information and my opinions.

Kasterborous truly is a monster. With hits for the first time over the 6000 level on Friday, it further underlines our mission while conversely underlining the fact that if we'd known what it was going to be like when we started putting it all together nearly two years ago, we probably wouldn't have bothered.

Philosophy is a great thing, cause you can make statements like the one above and not worry that everyone's going to take you seriously.

Kasterborous is growing up, hits-wise, and even got a (sort of) name check by the Doctor himself. Fair enough, the newer fans - and some of the oldtime fans - won't necessarily recall Kasterborous as being the constellation in which Gallifrey once resided, but that's not massively important.

Neither Kasterborous or Gallifrey have been mentioned in the new series, and I strongly suspect that this hasn't adversely affected Outpost Gallifrey's readership!

I wonder if either word will be uttered in Doctor Who again...

Earnest Who?

So finally the countdown begins in earnest! This evening sees the Press Launch of the 2006 series of Doctor Who in Cardiff – and about bloody time!

I’ve been moaning dear Ceri’s socks off since Boxing Day about when the next episode of Doctor Who is actually going to be on. Even during my “Who Hols” I was jotting question marks on post it notes and leaving them in strange places like the teapot, the alarm clock, the bottle bank and Rotherham.

Thankfully, it seems as though the nightmare is about to cease for 3 months or so, as David Tennant returns as the Tenth Doctor on (probably…) Saturday April 15th 2006.

Get ready for the trailers! Gasp at the posters! Hold on tight for another trip of a lifetime! Expect yet another catchy tag line!

Of course, it’s not all good news. I mean yes, it’s great and everything, but it’s not wonderful. Ok it is wonderful, but it comes at a cost…

Sleepless nights, drinking binges, over eating – all things I’m not going to have over the next three months. So missing out on the first one isn’t such a bad thing, but – as any of the Doctor Who web-meisters will agree – there’s a lot of work to stay on top of between now and July. Press releases, reviews, endless news items, image formatting, the list goes on.

You might find we’re a wee bit late with some news, but as ever we’ll present it with (almost) total irreverence…

Let's have a nice picture of the greatest dog in the world - K9!
(Incidentally, clicking on the metal mutt will take you to a page on Kasterborous where you can download a selection of desktop wallpapers, including one of K9...)

So, why are we having a K9 pic?
Well... I've just read through an email from Mr Mat Irvine, former Doctor Who visual FX wiz and K9 keeper.

We've interviewed Mat for Kasterborous recently, and the results should be available within the next 4 weeks. But what's really stood out is what a lot he has to say...

For this interview (you may or may not know, we've previously interviewed actor/presenter Peter Purves, writer Jean-Marc Lofficier and artists Andrew Skilleter and Daryl Joyce) we approached things a little differently. Lessons learnt and all that. Open-ended questions were used, as well as plenty of time given to the subject. Having knowledge of the subject's work is of course a major plus in these cases, as well.

Previous interviews have pretty much been of a "question and answer" format. However, following last years triumphant return of Doctor Who, Kasterborous ran an article featuring the thoughts and comments of many people from the world of Doctor Who fandom, including some of those mentioned above. This article, Adherents of Doctor Who (parts 1 and 2) successfully merged comments, opinions and thoughts into an apparent discussion, and proved very successful indeed...

You'll see a similar tone with the Mat Irvine interview - fingers crossed it works!

Can it get any worse than this? The waiting is unbearable!

Still, I have at least got my collection of BBC books to keep me going, with continued adventures of the Ninth Doctor and Rose, and later Captain Jack keeping my Who fix just about ticking over.

I did the right thing, I feel, having a break from the old fella a couple of months back. Hopefully this shows in my writing in this blog, in the Kasterborous Forum and in the new series of articles on the wonderful Caves of Androzani. If you haven’t already clicked the link to see why I believe Doctor Who would never reach the heights of Androzani for around 21 years, then please click it now.

It’s articles like this that are at t he heart of Kasterborous. As suggested last time, we wanted to do something different. A quick look around the web at Doctor Who websites shows a big bunch that are similar, based on a certain long-running other site, or just plain dull. The key Who sites are those that have made an effort to be different, and we count ourselves in that number. After all, where else could you find an account of Krau Timmin’s rise to CEO of the Sirius Conglomerate?

And if that’s the sort of variety of content you’re looking for, then don’t forget to come back in future. And if you like a Doctor Who-related laugh, I sincerely hope you’ve checked the current issue of Black Scrolls, which also features a wealth of articles on the wonderful Caves of Androzani, including interviews with Maurice Roeves (Stotz) and John Normington (Morgus)

If you haven’t seen Androzani, trust us. It really is that good!

This might be my first blog entry here, but it's really an extension of the limited space I'm allowed to do this sort of thing at Kasterborous. You'll pick up the gist of that site by visiting it or just reading this blog, I guess. After all, the return of Doctor Who is imminent...

It’s all around us. The anticipation is swelling, on both sides of the Atlantic almost simultaneously. Doctor Who Series 1 premieres on the US Sci-Fi Channel this Friday night, while the 2006 Series 2 is almost upon us, almost certainly due for an Easter Saturday showing.

The hit rate for Kasterborous has slowly increased over the last fortnight as interest continues to grow, and Outpost Gallifrey reports that the series Press Launch is due to take place on March 28th – expect to see plenty of UK press coverage of the new series from March 29th onwards.

What does this all mean? Well, it means a vast swathe of daily information will come your way, and there will be a lot to wade through. Stopping off at Kasterborous will save you loads of time as I’ll read it all for you and tell you the best bits. Plus when the new series starts I’ll even tell you whether the episode you just watched was any good or not.

But you see, that wasn’t the plan, back in the beginning. The idea was I write some interesting pieces (I think I’ve mainly kept my side of the bargain) and Ant would give us some nice images to accompany them (he’s done pretty well there, too). From somewhere, Brian came on board, the new series decided to be really, really good, and Kasterborous just went mad. Of course, we couldn’t have done it without you guys…

So if new Who isn’t whetting your appetite, you’re either dead or a fan of Caves of Androzani, the closing story of the Fifth Doctor Peter Davison’s era. We're looking at that story in-depth on Kasterborous right now...