Want to meet a Doctor Who actor? In many cases, you’re going to end up paying big bucks to spend time in the presence of someone you admire. You could have a chat, maybe get an autograph, or even have your photo taken with your hero. It’s up to you – you’re paying, after all.

But is it worth the money?

This week’s Kasterborous podcast looks at the costs involved with meeting a Doctor Who actor and what happens next. Do you feel good about it, or might it be a disappointment?

Did you treat that celebrity, that famous actor, that writer, that costume designer, or that man who stands in a rubber suit for hours every day with respect, or did you consider them as a two-dimensional character you saw off the TV, rather than a rounded, living human?

And did it make you feel good, or was it a disappointment?

Meeting a Doctor Who actor isn’t as simple as you thought, eh? Christian Cawley and James McLean recount their experiences meeting people connected to the show, and how those encounters seemed to go – at the time, and with the benefit of hindsight.

Cutaway Comics have been making massive inroads in the “things related to Doctor Who” space in recent times. To discuss their progress, producer Gareth Kavanagh joins the Kasterborous podcast once again.

This wide ranging conversation takes in Brian Blessed, Eric Saward, retro gaming, and much more. But it starts off, as many a great story should, in a basement in California…

That’s right – Gareth travelled to Gallifrey One this year. With a suitcase of comics and clothes and not enough money, he braved the world of international travel to spread the word about Cutaway Comics.

Hear more shows from the Kasterborous team at www.kasterborous.co.uk, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

It cannot have escaped your attention that Doctor Who is not currently on air. Such a state of affairs often turns even the hardiest fans – those who weathered the storm of the Time War years (1989-2005) – into fans of namby pamby identicop shows and even (whisper it) soap operas.

Fearing such a fate worse than death, the Kasterborous Doctor Who podcast has sought out perhaps the only show that can offer time travel, mystery, madness, humour, and pretty girls.

That’s right, it’s Life on Mars, the immensely wonderful BBC One drama series that ran from 2006-2008, and starred John Simm and Philip Glenister as accidental time traveller (?) DI Sam Tyler and his 1973 boss, DCI Gene Hunt. But why should you dig Life on Mars out on BBC iPlayer?

Good question, and below, we have the answer.

This is followed by a commentary (“we watch the show and talk over it”) of the first episode of Life on Mars. An interesting fact to note about this episode is how long it was in development – something like eight years, if not more – and how effortlessly it tells the story of Sam’s transition to 1973 and its effect on him.

If you’ve enjoyed any Kasterborous shows, please head to Apple Podcasts to leave a rating and review. We always read out five-star reviews, so you could hear your name uttered in hallowed tones…

Not on Apple Podcasts? Leaving the podKast a review somewhere else is also fine. Just send the link to them on Twitter or email podkasterborous@gmail.com, and you’ll get a mention.

Visit www.kasterborous.co.uk for more (actual) Doctor Who podcasts!

The Kasterborous Doctor Who podcast this week chats with Gareth Kavanagh about Cutaway Comics, producers of stories about a range of Doctor Who characters and settings including Orcini from Revelation of the Daleks, a sequel to Nightmare of Eden, and an expansion of Paradise Towers.

With Lytton already available, Omega released, and the audio version with Brian Blessed on the horizon, there is plenty to discuss.

Of particular interest is how the projects have been funded. Kavanagh relates how he accidentally used Kickstarter for the Lytton project and now bakes it into every Cutaway Comics production.

I was working with one of the comic artists on Lytton’s covers, and he went “Well surely you’re doing Kickstarter” and I went “Well, no…” and he went “Idiot!” and he called me “idiot” about three times. “Why aren’t you doing Kickstarter?”

And he told me: “There is a whole range of customers on Kickstarter who you will never reach, who will never know about the project you’re doing who are now looking for indie comics.”

Gareth Kavanagh

Click play below to listen to the full show.

If you enjoy the show, find the Kasterborous Doctor Who podcast on Apple Podcasts, where your reviews will help the show considerably.

As ever, the podKast with a K is also on top of the latest Doctor Who news, looking at whether Jodie Whittaker has quit and considering the bizarre resurrection of the Dark Dimension in the most recent show.

Elsewhere on Kasterborous, our old Doctor Who podcasts are resurfacing as they’re added to Audioboom and Apple Podcasts. Classic discussions and interviews with various writers and other personnel can be found, with two or three republished every week. These podcasts haven’t been available since at least 2015, with around two years’ worth of Doctor Who podcasts yet to add to the public archive.

In the meantime, we’ll leave you with this, our first look at how the events of the Time War audios and The Day of the Doctor recontextualise Doctor Who Series 1.

Stay up to date with the Doctor Who podKast with a K by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or bookmarking www.kasterborous.co.uk.

Emerging from lockdown with Hath breathing masks at 50%, Christian Cawley and James McLean bring you a brand new Doctor Who podcast, the latest instalment in the popular PodKast with a K series.

This time, they’re looking at the best of the worst. Doctor Who has a number of episodes and serials with bad reputations. That’s the focus on this week’s edition, with The TV Movie featuring the Eighth Doctor; the Fourth Doctor less-than-classic, Underworld; and even An Unearthly Child, the first ever Doctor Who story, all up for discussion.

Listen also for mention of Sol3, a new spoof news project.

Which of these tales, often called the worst in the show’s history, do you actually enjoy? Any guilty pleasures? Or any you think fandom is simply wrong about? Let us know in the comments below!

Christian Cawley, James McLean, and Brian Terranova reconvene for another in-depth chat about the latest episode of Doctor Who. Can You Hear Me? is an episode featuring a mix of time travel, classic-style villains, and a message of the week. Is the topical aspect of the show too heavy handed, as many have suggested? Or is there more to that approach?

Hopefully we’re some way to scratching at the answer to this question. Meanwhile, there is plenty more to talk about, not least the falling ratings of Doctor Who. What can the BBC do about it, short of forcing people to watch the TVs that they pay for and petition the government to ban Netflix?

We jest… or do we? There’s only one way to find out – hit play!

Over the years, the Doctor has had many companions. They come into his world and live the unbelievable life until it becomes too much and they wish to live a simple life again.

While they’ve all come and gone, none have stayed with the Doctor through all of his incarnations. But what of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, who, while not meeting every iteration of the Doctor, has met the most (alongside Clara Oswald) and made a significant impact on them all?

Before we get into the man, the myth, the legend, let’s take a quick look at the man who made the Brigadier possible.

Nicholas Courtney has perhaps the most impressive Doctor Who track record of all the actors involved with the show. He started his Doctor Who career as the hard-nosed Space Security Agent Bret Vyon acting opposite the First Doctor, William Hartnell in The Daleks’ Master Plan. It was this powerful performance that led the production team to consider him for the role of the Brigadier during the Second Doctor’s era with Patrick Troughton.

With two Doctors under his belt already, it seemed obvious that he was the right man to command the UNIT troops during the Third Doctor’s era.

The shape of Doctor Who would be forever changed by the presence of Nicholas Courtney. When Jon Pertwee’s tenure as the Doctor came to a close, so too did the regular role of UNIT and the Brigadier. But this would not be the end of such a talented actor’s stint within the show.

Few characters can claim the success of the Brigadier. Throughout the show’s initial 26-year run, Nicholas Courtney would reprise his role of the Brigadier and act along side every actor to play the Doctor save one, Colin Baker. That aside, however, he was even able to catch up with Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor to record an audio adventure for Big Finish (and the Sixth Doctor for the audio company too). Surely the Brigadier is a force to be reckoned with.

Here we have a man who has stuck by the Doctor’s side since their first meeting, and yet he is not typically considered a companion. For most of the Third Doctor’s era, the Brigadier and the Doctor were inseparable, often playing “devil’s advocate” to each other’s ideas. They seemed to be best friends.

The Brigadier can almost be called the other side of the Doctor’s coin. While not a total opposite in every way, he is willing to do whatever it takes to save the day – even if this means wiping out an entire species.

But is this kind of attitude wrong? I guess that depends on an individual’s feelings. The Doctor has knowledge of things we can only dream of, and it would seem that he is also more optimistic than us mere humans. So the Brigadier’s cavalier attitude towards the alien threats that have invaded our world may more reflect our own views.

That said, he is also a military man, and as cliche would have it, he is more likely to blow things up than to talk to them. This sort of attitude would infuriate the Doctor and often times leave the two of them bickering to such an extent that would normally lead to the splitting up of the Doctor/Companion relationship.

We saw what happened when Adam Mitchell made the Doctor mad in The Long Game (2005): he was taken home and left in a bad situation, never to return to an ordinary (or even fully extraordinary) life. This sort of thing never happened to the Brigadier; in fact, he and the Doctor would often be seen dining together soon after the offending situations and arguments. The two would continue an on-again-off-again relationship until the Third Doctor needed to regenerate, but even then this did not stop them from continuing their friendship. It only put a stop to their everyday adventures.

The Doctor would return again and again to help the Brigadier whenever he was called to do so. He even left behind a means of communicating with him, something he has never done for any other companion – not even his own granddaughter.

After their split, the Brigadier would pop back into the Doctor’s life on many occasions, eventually meeting ever incarnation from Doctor number one to Doctor number eight (if you count the Big Finish plays). Even when the Brigadier made a judgment call ending in the extermination of another species to save the Earth, the Doctor was still willing to sacrifice his own life to save the Brigadier, as can be seen by the emotional Seventh Doctor’s comment while cradling what he thought was the Brigadiers lifeless body. This is something he would normally do for either the entire planet or for a companion.

According to the Unofficial Companion Rule, to join the ranks of a companion, you have to travel from one story to the next via the TARDIS. The Brig has never done this, yet he is treated in much the same way as the rest of the Doctor’s companions. Some have called him an associate of the Doctor, but I feel this does not describe their relationship properly. While he may not fit all the criteria of a full-fledged companion, he seems to have one-upped them all by becoming the Doctor’s friend.

Sarah Jane Smith could be said to fall into this category too, as the Doctor stopped by her place some time after parting ways with her and left her a gift – something we have never seen him do before, again not even for his own granddaughter. She even was said to be his “best friend”, but she wasn’t give a means to continually keep in contact with the Doctor.

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart has done what no other in the Doctor Who’s history seemed able to do. He befriended a man with no ties to anywhere, kept in contact with him almost till the day he died (as is evident from The Wedding of River Song), and all of this without spending any length of time in the TARDIS or telling the Doctor how brilliant he is.

Fans of the sonic screwdriver might be interested to learn that occasional Doctor Who Companion contributor Brian A Terranova has produced an exhaustive history of the prop used on Doctor Who from 2005 to 2010 (with a brief return in 2013!).

Free to download, this is a 30 page PDF detailing the history of the sonic device wielded by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. Research has been conducted using promo images, screencaps, chats with prop makers, and even the acquisition of genuine prop components.

Want to know more? All will be revealed by reading the guide.

To get your copy of The RTD Era Sonic Screwdriver: A Compiled History, head to Kasterborous and click the download link.

Want to know more? Here’s Brian chatting with Christian Cawley about the genesis of the sonic screwdriver guide.

Kicking off 2019, it’s the podKast with a K, in which Christian Cawley, Gareth Kavanagh, and James McLean as they mull over Resolution, the sole episode of Doctor Who this year.

Written by Chris Chibnall, the New Year’s Day episodes featured Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor doing battle with an old enemy. In a new shell.

The Daleks are back, but how did this sole recon Dalek really end up destroyed by savages? The team ask this question and more, and hopefully find out something new about the episode.

Listen also for some news about some changes to the podKast with a K while Doctor Who is off air.

Ready? Hit play!