Various sources are reporting the death of Johnny Byrne, who wrote much of the hit series All Creatures Great and Small (based on the pseudonymous reminiscences of Yorkshire vet “James Herriot“, and starring among others a youthful Peter Davison) and also wrote three Doctor Who stories, The Keeper of Traken, Arc of Infinity and Warriors of the Deep (two of which also starred an only slightly less youthful Peter Davison).
Mercifully, few Who fans will be aware of Byrne’s peculiar participation on Usenet newsgroups discussing the break-up of Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s. He was determined to demonstrate the evils of the 1941-45 Croatian regime, which were indeed manifest and horrible, but went too far in appearing to argue that the deeds of the Croats fifty years before excused or exonerated the activities of the Serbs in the more recent conflict. The archives are all there on Google
I finished “Rat Trap” a while back too, and it wasn’t quite my favorite in the 5th Doctor trilogy for this year but it was enjoyable for an atmospheric type of audio. “Heroes of Sontar” is still my favorite, but “Kiss of Death” follows in close second since I did like it for Turlough’s character development (well, that and I’m a huge Turlough/Mark Strickson fan!). 😀
I quite enjoyed “Recorded Time & Other Stories” too! The 4 story audios are some of my favorite formats from Big Finish since it lets me sample small adventures without dragging on; my favorites have been “Forty-Five” and “The Demons of Red Lodge & Other Stories”. Colin Baker has definately grown on me after a couple of months of listening to his audios (“Project Lazarus” was the audio that got me hooked on Six for my favorite Big Finish Doctor.) Peri has also grown on me as a character, I think more with the Five/Peri/Erimem stories that I just had to all listen through. <3
I have just started hopping onto the Seventh Doctor stories and McCoy does a pretty good job with this mediium from what I've sampled so far (I'm currently jumping around the Seven/Ace/Hex audios). I'll have to check out "Robophobia" when I get the chance. I just bought "Robots of Death" on DVD, so it'll be nice to view/listen to these stories back to back. 😀