Sam

Bit difficult for a Monday, but I’m not against that. My main criticism is it just wasn’t fun. A couple of pretty obscure clues in here. CUZ is probably my most hated lol. Also happy to be corrected here, but I really dislike seeing NEWB/S keep turning up in these puzzles. For anyone online who actually uses the term, it’s spelled NOOB/S.

Yikes. Maybe I’m too young, or too non-American, but this was a chore for me. GOTCHADAY… have adopted a number of pets, and never heard this phrase. Nor do I ever want to again lol. PAH, ERST, REC, MPS. Hated these. GALUMPHED? Awful. Also, TREETOAD???? Is this an American thing? Even Google corrects it to Tree Frog because u know, that’s their name… Anyway. Just a slog. Not fun. Glad it’s over.

Holy meatballs. I chewed through 80% of this puzzle without fully comprehending the theme. Once it finally clicked? WOW. Had to stop for a couple of minutes to simply admire the genius it takes to make this work so effortlessly. Truly brilliant puzzle. What a wonderful Sunday.

Okay seriously NYT what is going on this week? Almost every single puzzle was Tuesday, gusting Wednesday at best, level of easy. Please don’t make this the norm.

Sheesh. I’m all for a fun theme, but when half of the answers revolve around a very specific piece of pop culture you are almost immediately alienating 1000s of solvers who have never watched Star Trek. Appreciate that not every puzzle is going to be for everyone and hopefully the Trekkies out there sincerely enjoyed this but for me, pure slog.

Alright, be honest. Who nailed the spelling of ONOMATOPOEIA first try? I certainly did not lol.

Eh, no thanks. What a shame that such a BRILLIANT Friday puzzle was backed up by this sorry mess. Truly horrible clueing. Super forced and trying WAY too hard to be clever.

A really enjoyable Friday. A bunch of clues that I didn’t know the answer to but almost all of them were able to be filled via crosses or just educated guesses. Just how a crossword should be. Not too easy, nor too hard. Thanks Jacob!

Small bone to pick: Chinese itself isn’t a single language. It’s a language family, similar to Romance languages. It would be similar to clueing “three, to a Romance language speaker” and the answer is tres. Three in Mandarin is san. Three in Canto is saam. I’m sure there are plenty of other Chinese languages where this differs even further.

Sheesh. This was a drag. Not even remotely satisfying. Way too many proper nouns. Some desperate reaches for incredibly lacklustre clues. Poor crosses. Average theme. Just straight up bad. Sorry.

I may be an outlier here but I immediately entered - - - - as soon as I got the “aha” moment! LINE just didn’t make sense to me especially after reading the clue in 112A and also considering the affected down clues. This was such a fun solve. I was totally stumped until it finally clicked and once it did I finished this off in a breeze. What a joy. Thank you Harry!

Now that was a proper Saturday. Tough, meaty, and plenty of misdirects to keep my head proper itchy. Took me the better part of an hour, but entirely gettable without lookups. I had MORTADELLA in 17A for the longest time, and the double BB on 1D was throwing me for six. 64A was great, shoutout COD Zombies for helping me snag that immediately. Didn’t love 19A, but I’ll let it slide as the rest of the puzzle was intelligently assembled. Brava.

Emily and Kunal, thank you. Brilliant puzzle, wickedly clever theme. First Sunday I’ve solved without any hints or lookups. I’ll tell ya what though, trying to spell KILIMANJARO without any crosses was a test of my memory that’s for sure.

Now THIS is a crossword. Not easy by any measure, but brilliantly clever clueing that allows any solver to get there with enough grit and crossing. What a joy.

What a brilliant, thoughtful puzzle. This is the perfect type of Thursday. Where you pass over a few clues and immediately think “huh, there’s something going on here” but you aren’t quite sure what yet. Is it a rebus? Is it a wraparound? Huh. Nope. And then it slowly starts to piece together, the revealer starts to make sense and you just think “sheesh man, that was so damn clever”. Well done.

Quick and easy. Nice debut. Small nitpick: CPLs don’t have ‘stripes’, they have chevrons. A two ‘stripe’ military rank would be a captain.

Dang. This was very clever and a LOT of fun. Simple, satisfying Sunday. Perfect for the rainy weather we have here right now. Thank you Mr Bodily!

Wow!! This week is funny. Set a PB for both Monday and today and probably my worst time ever for Tuesday! What a blast this puzzle was. Took me a hot minute to realise what was going on, but once it clicked boy was it fun! Thanks y’all. This extends my streak to a new longest record also!

Will never understand why North Americans are the only place in the world who continue to refer to mains as entrées. While yes, I understand the history and how it came to be, dining has changed. Entrée is from the French entrer which literally means ‘to enter’. In this case, a dish serving as the entrance to a meal. We often now have appetisers as well but the rest of the world generally agrees upon apéritif > appetiser > entrée > main > dessert > digestif.

Almost set a PB, but never once got the theme. Even after reading and understanding it, I couldn’t help but think “oh, is that it…” boring. Decent puzzle, poor theme.

Eh. So so. Relatively straightforward for a Sunday. Theme was cute but very basic and almost immediately recognisable. Almost had a stroke reading 111D.

Wonderful Sunday. Had FIVE in 33A for far too long. Am I the only one in here who has never heard the term WHAP before?

Very clever, loads of fun. Thanks Kareem 👨‍🚀

Wow! Wasn’t expecting this comment section. I breezed through this for my fastest ever Wednesday 🎉 LOVED this puzzle. Some of the answers were a little clunky but none I couldn’t solve with the help of the crosses. Happy v day y’all

Sheesh. What a monster. This wasn’t my favourite, but I have to give PROPS to Mr Proulx for crafting this beauty. I’ll admit on my first pass through, the picture clues filled me with a little FEAR. I STARED AT this puzzle for far too long, and only one thing was certain. This beast was CLEAR AS MUD. No matter where I looked, it just wasn’t making any sense. I had nothing. Nil. Zilch. Nada. ZERO. Ok. SIDESTEP, time for a new IDEA. You may have won round one Mr Proulx, but this sure ain’t OVER. Took a little break, treated myself to a nice, cold ALE and blasted some MEGAN Thee Stallion on my STEREO SET. Alright, alright. Feeling pumped. Time to get NERDY. Slowly but surely, the pieces start falling into place and yet, I still haven’t cracked the theme. Might need some backup here. I reach back into my UNIT, “PSST ROSIE, any update on the SITREPS?”. “Hi MA’AM, looks like 101D is still EMITting, can you get ONTO that for me?”. Aha! First one down, and now it’s starting to make sense. I finally HAVE EYES ON this devilish theme. The sudden reveal gives me a JOLT and I start chowing down on the rest of the clues. Definitely not my best time today. I eventually fill in the last square and it’s…. NOT SO. Huh. The BETRAYal. I suppose I’m not as ADEPT as I thought. With my brain feeling like VENUS right now, I let it THAW a little before finding my mistake. Bingo. Hiding in the NNE corner. Very clever sir, but I win this round. ADOUT, Mr Proulx.

Eh. Not too tricky but didn’t enjoy this at all. Some pretty weird clueing and was just one of those puzzles you trudge your way through. Well below average time for a Wednesday, but honestly just a boring puzzle with no real standouts.

Fun puzzle, no complaints here. I’m either having a ripper week or the crosswords have been relatively easy this week. Set a PB on both Monday and Tuesday and now a PB for Friday. Wednesday tripped me up a bit but the Thursday theme was also such a joy. Solid week NYT. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Tough, but fair. I had only two fills on my first pass through. Thought I was going to be in for an absolute slog lol but it slowly started piecing together nicely. NE corner held me up a while though. I had 8D INT and 10D RAIN was set on 16A being an NFL term. Took me far too long to get out of that hole. Cleverly done. Came in just over my average time but it was an enjoyable challenge. Thanks mate.

Mondays are my least favourite day, because they’re over so fast :( breezed through this and almost set a PB! Super cute puzzle though! Thanks Ari.

Solid Wednesday. Decent enough theme. First time learning about ICHINGCOINS and not mad about it. Not a fan of XDIN or SKOAL, however. First one is definitely way too forced and SKOAL is just simply wrong. Other than that though, quite enjoyable. Thanks Juliana!

NE corner was just unnecessarily brutal. Three long answers in 12/13/14D crossed with 4 proper nouns, a Latin word, an obscure magazine award, and the name of some poem. Sheesh man, give us young folk a fighting chance would ya.

I may be an outlier here it seems, but I really did not like this. The theme was very clever, I’ll give you that. But the fill (in my opinion) was not enjoyable. I can’t put my finger on exactly what, but I truly despised some of the answers and just an overall slog to chew through. Not difficult by any means—still below my average time—but not fun either.

Might just be me but this puzzle made me feel absolutely nothing at all. It was bang on for a Tuesday level of difficulty, however the clueing was just meh.

Any other dumb dumbs frivolously try and make FOURTH fit in the final themed clue? Hit a HOME run in the end, but that had me questioning everything I knew before it finally clicked lmao. Fairly easy Wednesday all said and done, but a super fun puzzle and generous clueing. Thanks Nathan.

Wooooow. What a puzzle. Absolutely splendid theme!! I can’t even comprehend how insanely difficult it is to create something like this. Wickedly clever, pleasantly difficult. Needed a few lookups to get through this but they were all more than fair in both clueing and crossing! There were just a couple of things well above my pay grade lol but am always happy to learn, especially when it’s a puzzle as brilliant as this one!

Man, brilliant. I loved this, until I didn’t. Not the creator’s fault however, just 44D making an absolute meal out of me. Sped through this. Filled in my last clue. And nothing. Parsed it backwards and forwards. CABFARE made so much sense. No idea who the Gershwin brothers are. IBA? Odd name, but sure. Probably some weird old Jewish spelling. Legit had to look up the answer key to see where I went wrong. What on earth is a CARFARE???!? Is this some weird American-ism? Anyway, great puzzle nonetheless. Super clever theme.

Oh man. I’m so dumb. Almost came to the comments to complain about how the creator mustn’t know what a SPOONERISM means. Then it hit me. The clue is the spoonerism, not the answer. Boy it’s been a long day.