Johnny Byrne
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| Johnny Byrne | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Christopher Byrne 27 November 1935 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 3 April 2008 |
- For the former England international footballer and South African soccer coach, see Johnny Byrne (footballer). For other people named 'John Byrne', see John Byrne (disambiguation).
Johnny Byrne (27 November 1935 - 3 April 2008) was an Irish writer and script editor for the BBC. He traveled extensively in his youth as a traveling poet. In the 1960s he worked as a literary editor, and wrote poetry and short stories which were published in Science Fantasy magazine. His other works include Groupie (1969), Season Of The Witch (1971), and the scripts for the films Adolf Hitler, My Part In His Downfall (1972), and Rosie Is My Relative (1976). He became the main writer and story consultant on the series All Creatures Great and Small (1976, 1978, 1985, 1988-1990), and also wrote for One By One (1987). He created the series Noah's Ark and wrote many of the episodes for the two series. He also created the series Heartbeat (loosely based on the Constable books by Nicholas Rhea) and was the main script writer for 17 series from 1992 to 2007.
[edit] Space: 1999
Byrne was the most prolific script contributor to the first season of Space: 1999 (1973-75), and was initially given the assignment of story consultant for the second season (1976-77). However, in order to make a greater impact on the American market, the producers wanted an American story consultant, and the job was given to Fred Freiberger. Byrne's scripts for Space: 1999 include "Matter of Life and Death" (based on a draft by Art Wallace), "Another Time Another Place", "Force of Life", "Voyager's Return" (based on a draft by Joe Gannon), "End of Eternity", "The Troubled Spirit", "Mission of the Darians", "The Testament of Arkadia", "The Metamorph", "The Immunity Syndrome" and "The Dorcons".
[edit] Doctor Who
For some, Byrne is most famous for his contributions to the British science fiction series Doctor Who. He wrote three stories for the classic series. The first was The Keeper of Traken (1981), which resurrected the character of the Master and served as the first installment of a trilogy of stories featuring that character. For the same story, Byrne created the character of Nyssa of Traken, who later became one of the Doctor's companions.
His second story, Arc of Infinity (1983), featured the ancient and powerful Time Lord Omega, who had previously appeared in The Three Doctors. His last screened story was Warriors of the Deep (1984) which brought back the Silurians and the Sea Devils. He wrote the script for a Doctor Who movie in 1990, but due to a legal dispute between the BBC and the film production company, his script went unused.
