Kasterborous: Retro cult, Doctor Who, ramblings, and fear of AI
A Gen Xer celebrates what we've lost
If you were around on the internet in 1996, there is a good chance that you were at university. I wasn’t, but I was visiting someone who was. He introduced me to Excite.com, a web portal (which incredibly, still exists!) where I could access these fangled new things called “websites.”
It’s hard to believe now, but the web and the internet were not integrated into everything 30 years ago.
A few minutes later, I was searching for something called the “Doctor Who TV Movie,” desperate to know if the show I’d watched a few months before was going to get a series. I’d already clocked that the turnaround on Doctor Who Magazine and SFX meant the news would leak online first.
But there was nothing.
Well, apart from pages and pages of websites. Even in 1996, I’m pretty sure there was more World Wide Web than a single human could read in their lifetime. Just imagine how long it would take now!
It had an effect
One of the things that struck me most about the web — aside from it appearing to be a mix of galleries, DIY pages, and a CD-based encyclopedia — was that it reminded me of a dream I’d had years earlier. In it, I flicked through a book of my writings, underlining words, and tapping them to change the words around them.
It’s quite possible I’d used some software or read something that offered a similar description. Regardless, seeing it in practice switched something in my head… for the next few years, in my head, I was planning a website.
I just didn’t know what it was going to be.
In the subsequent years, I created websites for everything from my music project (you couldn’t call it a band!) and a family photos site, to various sites based around Doctor Who.
Badly.
I’d probably given up when a chance conversation on an internet forum lead to the creation of Kasterborous. Back then, it was conceived primarily as a Doctor Who site, with art and articles. As things moved on, the scope changed, and an early plan to expand into all British cult material was sadly dropped.
Instead, we focused on treating the show as fun, avoided getting too serious, and retained a sense of irreverence, one way or another.
For 10 years, the site grew, with a spin off podcast, charity comic strip, radio appearances, a magazine, and even a book. It burned pretty bright… and then it burned out (or I did).
It’s good to talk
But the podcast persisted. The silliness could not be extinguished, but the pressure of writing fresh material for 1000s of readers every day was very real.
If I’m honest, Doctor Who in 2015 was of less interest to me than Old Jack’s Boat (a CBBC show with Bernard Cribbins). Who knows why? Changing tastes and expectations, perhaps. It seemed preferable to watch shows I could enjoy, rather than shout, or internally scream: “you’re doing it wrong!”
A fresh start, chatting weekly (or for a time, monthly) about Doctor Who and the many worlds beyond, seemed preferable to hitting “Publish” five times a day. So, the podcast (with a “K”) become my outlet for discussing the daft old time travelling show.
The spider’s World Wide Web
But over the past few years, I’ve noticed a few things.
Everything we watch and enjoy is increasingly interconnected, whether by production, by genre, by topic, by audience, and by various other factors.
People of my generation are increasingly interested in the 1980s and 1990s.
Doctor Who’s production isn’t standing up to audience expectations of storytelling or distribution.
More recently, thanks to running a website specifically for the Kasterborous podcast to have a home online, I’ve realised something else: websites are terrible. Unless you’re building something specifically for sponsorship, or as a portfolio, or it’s your business page, etc., the notion of a website has been subverted, upended, whatever you want to call it. Comments are discouraged, adverts are unattractive and slow, and people don’t really read things properly.
Some sites are doing well, no doubt. But most are not. And if you’re relaunching or launching something new, without a ton of money behind you, you’re going nowhere.
This stuff goes straight to your inbox
No one has time to read the web, what with Instagram and TikTok and X and BlueSky and Twitch and YouTube and then there’s telly and Netflix and Disney+ and Prime and Hulu and Paramount+ (for now) and…
Oh, and then there’s AI, the scourge of modern creators, disrupting stuff that never needed disrupting, from art to articles.
Reading the web has changed… but then, when do you get time to just read the web? It hardly ever happens these days, does it? So, now, a decade after the age of 300 word news posts and ads and comments and reviews and merch details, it’s time to get with the modern world.
I’m dropping an email into your inbox, kicking off with one a week, exploring thoughts about Doctor Who and wider TV and retro culture. How do these things still resonate? Why am I enjoying Claws of Axos more than Doctor Who Series 15? Will AI kill us all? And why am I spending time playing on old computers, watching old action movies, and slowly working my way through my Network DVD (RIP) collection when I have a Netflix subscription?
Maybe we’ll find out as I explore these topics, and various others.
The name of this publication is still a work in progress, which I hope to resolve soon.
(Meanwhile, the podcast continues, related but separate, and available for your patronage on, um, Patreon.)