Hello, Doc never fails to surprise! Managed to unravel this one though the rubric appeared at first misleading. The answer to the trio was an interesting discovery, indeed! The gridfill was pretty straightforward except for 34 (A) which was confirmed in the thesaurus.
Hi, Matakari. I'm sure you enjoyed seeing the discussions here about the theme, the trio, 34 A and so on - there were several threads.
I'm still not a Doc fan, and this puzzle did nothing to convert me!