Kasterborous is the Doctor Who news and reviews website and community, formed in 2004 by Christian Cawley and Anthony Dry.
The initial aim was to mix original artwork with interesting articles on Doctor Who: following Anthony Dry’s departure for pastures new, however, we moved towards providing coverage of Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and the fantastic audios from Big Finish.
Over the years the site has grown its own Doctor Who Forum and branched out into comic strips, books and podcasts.
Now run by Christian Cawley and Brian A. Terranova, and with a team of great Doctor Who fans providing news and reviews, we pride ourselves in being honest and outspoken in our coverage of the world’s longest running adventure series, with a touch of irreverence thrown in for good measure.
If you want your Doctor Who news to be measured and bland, head elsewhere!
The Kasterborous Editorial Team
Since forming in 2004 we have had various personnel, from designer Anthony Dry (whose work many of you will know from the Doctor Who DVD box sets) to serial reviewer James Whittington. Our current lineup includes:
Brian A Terranova (Associate Editor)
Doctor Who and me go way back. I first discovered it on my local PBS Station WHYY in the suburbs outside Philadelphia when I was a young kid; though I am uncertain of the exact age.
What attracts me to the show, aside from the fantastic ideas and impossible things, is the fact that the hero uses no weapons and prefers to stay away from violence. To me this made the show such a wonderful change and something I felt everyone could learn from.
So here I am today, writing reviews and articles and even making the occasional podkast and news snippet about it. I’m told that aside from talking about the show I should probably mention some future ambitions of my own and being an artist, musician and amateur actor, my only ambitions would be to one day make a living doing the things that I love. I’m not picky, so long as I enjoy it, I’ll be happy.
Thomas W Spychalski
Besides contributing to Kasterborous, Thomas Willam Spychalski has also written about Doctor Who for the fanzines Whotopia and Fish Fingers and Custard. He also co-edits Kasterborous’ sister site Cult Britannia as well as working on other future writing projects both fiction and non.
Tom has been a Doctor Who fan since the early eighties and has developed a deep love and admiration for the show and its universe in that time.
Tom feels that the show’s strengths lie in the fact that the concept allows you to do practically anything from historical drama to sci-fi thrillers and that the Doctor is not the common gun-toting hero that has become so cliche in modern times. He uses his brains where others would use their fists.
This has lead to a show that can inspire both morals and extraordinary creativity in the viewer and still allows it to subliminally maintain the educational aspect of the show from the time it was conceived.
Tom also enjoys stomping children’s toys and cat worship.
James Whittington
James has been a Doctor Who fan for as long as he can recall. A child of the 70s and 80s he weathered all the storms and controversies the show encountered, though he didn’t buy the “Doctor In Distress” single.
A chance meeting when he was seven with the Fourth Doctor in a local department store cemented his adoration for all things Tom Baker. The time Tom took out to speak to the adoring young fan is a personal highlight. That said his favourite Doctors include the fourth, closely followed (in no perticular order) by 7, 9 and, by jove, number 11.
An active member of the Kasterborous writing team for a while (he’s not sure how long) James is, by day, an E-Learning Specialist and by night a Freelance Writer, mainly in the horror entertainment industry. His first book, The Random Book Of James was published in 2009.
Patrick Riley
Patrick came into the Whoniverse fairly late in the game – in fact, the first episode he ever saw was Planet of the Ood when it was broadcast on BBC America. A few weeks later, after watching Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead he decided that Doctor Who was the most creative TV show he’d ever seen, and his already-present ambitions of filmmaking morphed into the desire to some day join the Who production crew and, with extreme fortune, even direct an episode or two.
Since then, he’s become obsessed with every aspect of the show and has absorbed every televised story made since 1996 and a significant chunk of the classic series, which he’s continually adding to his DVD collection. The Doctor that fits his personality best in his mind, and is therefore his favourite, is the Eleventh, though there’s no incarnation he doesn’t regard as spectacularly superb. When he’s not writing for Kasterborous, Patrick eats, tweets, and greets customers at the local college bookstore where he works.
Andrew Reynolds
As a Kasterborous contributor, I get to indulge in that first feeling I had back when BBC 2 decided to take a break from Supermarionation and aired Spearhead from Space, on a daily basis. From that first taste, it was a hop onto the fantastic TV movie (love that TARDIS set),a skip onto buying DWM on holiday in Great Yarmouth (by the way, which issue had a comic which ended with the Seventh Doctor carrying a battle-scarred Ace in his arms?) and a full jump and neck high plunge into regenerated Who (the Daleks! the suit! the brilliant, bold storytelling!)
Everyone has a favourite Doctor and mine – just for his honesty, his fairness and his ability to not notice the Master’s awful, awful disguises/anagrams(Sir Gilles Estram!?!) – has to be the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison. The stories didn’t serve him as well as his acting served those stories.
Outside of the Whoniverse, I’m a writer who is currently specialising in screenplays and short stories. I have also contributed articles on film, music and TV for Helium, Bright Hub and Den of Geek.
Meredith Burdett
What happens when an eight year old kid watches the 1993 repeat run of Planet of the Daleks? He pretty much ends up here writing about the show that grabbed hold of him and never let go. Nothing in the world of Doctor Who is ever boring (“The Twin Dilemma” I hear you shout, well I say “Bah!” It’s a fine debut performance from Colin Baker!) we all tune in for 13 weeks a year to be given a new and exciting way to be entertained and in between that, we feast on DVD’s, CD’s and books.
No other show in the world has this much creativity and flexibility-we get roughly 40 new stories in various formats a year. A year! Always different and always fun – have that EastEnders!
And that’s why I do this, this show will always be new and fresh and exciting and when I’m not installing Reading programs in schools (long story) or shredding the guitar strings (shorter story) I’m doing news and reviews because this show is amazing and I’ll never stop loving it or wanting to talk about it.
And Andrew, the Doctor Who Magazine you’re thinking of is number 242…
Scott Varnham
While Scott can’t claim to have a long history with Doctor Who stretching back to his childhood, as most of the other contributors do (first episode was The Unquiet Dead, followed by a bit of backtracking to see Rose and The End Of The World), he made up for it by writing down his ramblings about each new episode on various sites, starting with Victory Of The Daleks onwards and catching up with a few of the classic serials on the way.
In his spare time, he writes for Kasterborous, Blogcritics and his personal blog at WordPress. He’s also on Twitter where he tries to be interesting and verbose in 140 characters.
And yes, all those Doctor-inspired items of clothing are his.
Christian Cawley (Editor)
It could be said that Christian Cawley is a Tom Baker fan first and Doctor Who fan second, but on most days this would be inaccurate. Suffice to say he loves the show, warts and all (Time and the Rani and New Earth notwithstanding), but does have a tendency to boom “Ahhhahhh!” and hand out jelly babies…
Prompted to form Kasterborous in a fit of desperation at needing a post-smoking outlet from the 9-5 grind, writing for the site has in fact turned out to be a path into a new career as a freelance writer.
Happy to take on board new ideas and projects (not to mention being welcoming to new contributors contacting us on spec…) Christian’s favourite Doctor Who serial of all time is probably The Seeds of Doom, although Inferno comes a pretty close second.
When he’s not bossing around the news team, Christian is a freelance writer specialising in mobile technology and domestic computing, and enjoys classic rock, cooking and spending time in the countryside.
Anyone who would like to forward news items, is interested in becoming a part of the team, or just fancies a chat can contact Christian directly either via the submission form or by emailing christian@kasterborous.com.
Finally, the legal stuff…
Kasterborous, Kasterborous.com are Copyright © Christian Cawley 2004-2012. All articles are original and owned by the named writers thereof. All original artwork Copyright © the named owner unless otherwise stated. Images are used under fair use terms except where a source is attributed. External sources are quoted where relevant. Kasterborous is a non-profit-making project.
Doctor Who, the Doctor Who Logo and the TARDIS name and image are Copyright © by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 1963, 2004. The Dalek name and image Copyright © Terry Nation 1963. No infringement on any of these Copyrights (or any Doctor Who BBC Licence Holder Copyright) is either implied or intended.
The distinct visual style of Kasterborous v5-1 is by Anthony Dry. The template used is Arras, available from www.arrastheme.com.