Hitch

Bit of a 'meh' puzzle. Unsatisfying in so many little ways, but I can't quite say exactly why.

A bit too trivia-heavy for my liking. Probably should have been a Tuesday puzzle with some better clues. There's always a fine line between an enjoyable, difficult puzzle that stands on its merits, and a simple puzzle made difficult with random trivia and overly obscure clues. Unfortunately, this fell into the latter for me. It didn't have the substance to be challenging on its own merits.

Creators are getting way too lazy by using arcane trivia to make puzzles hard. It's OK when you can infer by other answers, but that wasn't the case today. All in all, a bit of a disappointment. Feel like I wasted my time today, with very little satisfaction when done.

I have to disagree with the general sentiment here - That this was a good puzzle. We've been so starved of good puzzles lately, we are conflating difficulty with quality. This one felt like a slog, with very little reward.

Very weak and disappointing puzzle! Some extremely obscure answers to tenuous clues, interspersed with random trivia. As for 7 across the clue could have been, "insert random letters here." Absolutely nothing clever about this puzzle. If I wanted a general knowledge quiz I would have gone elsewhere. I'd suggest that debut creators cut their teeth on a Monday to Wednesday puzzle, certainly not a Friday or Saturday.

A little too 'clever' for the creators own good. When I was done done didn't go 'aha', or 'that's clever'... I went 'meh'. Did of a waste of my Sunday.

As a non-US solver, I always struggle with how the clues 'dagnabbit', and 'bah', are used for any kind of backwater colloquialisms. Surely there are better clues to be had.

Been asking for a difficult one, and boy we sure got it! Now if we can just go one step further - difficult and clever. I want 'aha' moments, not obscurity. Especially when that obscurity is down and across in most of the puzzle. I'm a relatively new solver (5 years), but the archived puzzles seem to be so much better.

I'd be interested to see if anyone else feels the crosswords are beginning to feel dumbed-down? I used to be a 4/7 each week, now I'm hard-pressed not to be able to finish one. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in particular have been excessively weak lately. Is there a large turnover of puzzle creators? Are puzzles published on merit, or some 'other' metric nowadays? The NYT crossword used to be at the pinnacle. The best way I can describe it recently is 'meh...'.

From all the love for this puzzle, I'm going to assume it is popular amongst Americans. For anyone not intimately familiar with American history and culture this was unsolveable. There was no balance between difficult answers and getable ones. So for now, I will say that this was a terrible puzzle for everyone else. What has happened to the creators that could make a difficult puzzle without resorting to arcane and regional knowledge? All that being said, I thing the clues were very challenging and unique, and if the creator would close the encyclopedia for a second I think she could create some legendary puzzles!

Thought it was oldie but goldie? And I agree, let's keep the 'creative' names out of the actor clues. On the whole too much random trivia, not enough actual clever clues. It seems to be a 'shortcut' too many puzzle creators are taking lately to create difficult crosswords.

Nice Wednesday puzzle. Not easy, not difficult. Just enough thinking for the middle of the week. Plus a fun little theme at that! Well done to the creator. This puzzle left me well satisfied!

Suppose everyone comes here to praise the puzzle(r), so I thought I'd give it some balance. Not the best! It's very hard to make small puzzles difficult, and I don't feel the author did a very good job here. If you have to rely on obscurantism in your questions to make it difficult, perhaps it means a puzzle of this level is beyond your perview...

Was about to have a rant about a stupid puzzle with tenuous clues... Until I got it 🤣.

Stop trying to make 'the olds' happen. It is a term old people think is common amongst the youth. It is not! I cringe everytime a creator uses it. Also, while I'm moaning, creators need to pick their lane, and that lane is 'amok', not 'amuck'.

Nice Sunday puzzle. Well done to the creator. As a non-American, I spent a bit too much time trying to figure out why the rebus was what is was. Penny dropped with Western Union, but a few too many 'americanisms' for me made me throw in the towel after I had to check hbcus. I'm a 'finish unhelped, or check the puzzle as soon as there is an answer you cannot get' kind of guy.

Clues too cryptic and obscure to enjoy. No balance in this puzzle. Every clue was so vague you couldn't get a foothold...

April fools! It's a Monday puzzle on Wednesday!

Couldn't finish. A few too many 'americanisms' for a lowly foreign solver 😩

Sat down with my coffee and thinking cap for a challenging Thursday puzzle. Finished the puzzle, then the coffee... Now what?

Nice puzzle. Not the hardest, but I reckon it's difficult to challenge long time solvers without resorting to random trivia. All in all a fun, and satisfying, themed puzzle. I'm happy with the occasional confidence boosting Thursday before the challenges ahead! 😂

Hard Tuesday, fine Wednesday, weak Thursday...

Great puzzle to start the week! Simple, but clever. Here's hoping for some real challenges come Thursday!

When puzzles miss the mark by a little, as I feel this one did, I feel it's the editor who should take the blame. Reading the completing puzzle, everything makes perfect sense. You need the outside perspective to point out the flaws, and this clearly did not happen in this case.

Not my favourite puzzle. Seems a bit all over the place. Clues and answers ranged from cryptic, to standard, to tenuous. I prefer a nice solid themed puzzle. But that's just me 😜

Great Friday puzzle. Challenging, but doable. Well done to the creator(s)!

I enjoyed this one. Challenging crossword without also being a 'puzzle', which can be hard. Took a bit of thinking, but all very doable, with a good balance between down and across difficulty. Definitely worthy of a Friday, or a difficult Thursday.

Way too many 'Americanisms' for this foreigner. It's a pity, because I was enjoying the puzzle immensely until I hit a dead end of colloquial knowledge. Feeling a bit deflated after spending more than an hour on this 😞...

A nice Tuesday or Wednesday puzzle, I think. I don't know if it's just me getting better, but the puzzles have seemed far less challenging recently. The only puzzles that stump are filled with random trivia or arcana. It's been a while since we had a difficult, and CLEVER, puzzle.

Great Tuesday puzzle! Still very solvable, but had to apply myself, as a non-American.

Too 'American' for this lowly foreigner...

Bottom left got me. A couple of the crosses I didn't know, and bag clip was obscure if you didn't know them to help 😞

Someone needs to spell this out to me. I don't get it. Seems like quite a random theme just to be able to use goof offs twice. It's just a standard puzzle otherwise. Anyway, please can somebody explain what the shaded letters mean as if I were a child?

Nice Sunday puzzle! Did it on my phone so had to use my specs to keep most of the puzzle on the screen 😂. In these large puzzles I often have a typo or two and can't be bothered to go through all the clues to check, so I seldom get my nice yellow solved block 😞. Anyway, well done to the creator! Easy enough, and fun enough to leave me well satisfied by the end.

I did not enjoy this one. Can't quite put my finger on why though. Felt a little juvenile...

Thought that's a nice Friday, then realised it's only Thursday. So a nice tough Thursday then. I look forward to tomorrow's puzzle.

I had no chance on this one. Too much general knowledge I didn't know, and difficult clues I couldn't get without a start from those answers. I do hate the use of other languages. I understand that they are second languages to a lot of Americans and that is the main market, but the continued use of Spanish and French alienates me and many others. By and large a good puzzle, even if i had to throw in the towel 3/4 into it...

More puzzle than crossword...

Great puzzle for a Wednesday! Took me way too long to solve it because of the single rebus, and the fact I did it on the app and didn't connect the dots visually. All in all, not very difficult, but a little tricky. Well done.

Nice puzzle. Relatively easy, and maybe better suited to a Wednesday? That being said, easy Thursdays are usually followed by brutal Fridays 😩

The puzzles have, on the whole, been exceptionally easy lately. It's been a long time since we've had a truly challenging puzzle that isn't full of arcane trivia.

I started at the bottom, so ended up being easier than expected. Still tricky in parts. It also didn't count as a solve for me unfortunately, because I put the ts in as a rebus 😩. Would have been a worthy Thursday if the ts were randomly dispersed. All in all, a good puzzle. But I'm still waiting for a great one.

Would be nice if at least once a month they did a Sunday catered to everyone, not just Americans.

Feels like this week's crosswords are all one day ahead of schedule.