Regine

Sigh and sigh again. First, I thought this was REALLY fun. I enjoy spending my time on the puzzle, so I very much appreciate any extra layer that lets me crunch on it a little longer. Anyone else recall the lovely experience as a kid of having a parent or some other smart and loving adult lay out a treasure hunt for you? It feels... special. Like they took the time to *create* something for you to enjoy and be engaged with. That's what a carefully considered puzzle puts me in mind of. These constructors worked together to put something fun out in the world for us to enjoy. Now, can they be sure that *everyone* is going to enjoy it? Obviously not, and I enjoy the different viewpoints on the puzzle - to the extent that they reflect personal opinions. Folks who don't care for the escape room experience, people who don't enjoy riddles, etc etc - that all makes sense to me. What'll never make sense to me and what I'll not soon stop commenting on is the folks who paint the puzzle or (especially) people involved with a broad and imperious negative brush. "Shame on Will Shortz"? Seriously? *Shame*? "Incomprehensible and irrelevant"? When are people going to learn that these kinds of comments say more about the commenter than they do about anything else? Ms. Zhang, Mr. Curry: thanks very much for your efforts. I thought the cluing was more than generous to support lots of successes today, and even the theme clues were really pretty straightforward. Looking forward to your next.

This was tremendously entertaining - all very cute themers and some (WHAT'S THE DAMAGE and SALESPERSON, for example) I'll giggle over for the rest of the day. Also wanted to agree that MRSWHO would be incredibly difficult if you've not read A Wrinkle in Time - but if you haven't, please from the bottom of my bachelor's-degree-in-children's-literature heart give it a try. It doesn't read like a kids' book or particularly like science fiction or fantasy, all things it's generally classified as and two of which I don't usually particularly like. It's... lovely. Lovely and thoughtful and just an excellent read. I actually like Wind in the Door, which follows it, even better, but Wrinkle is the one to start with. MRSWHO - and her friends Mrs. Which and Mrs. Whatsit and of course Meg and Calvin and Charles Wallace - are literary companions of the highest possible order. Wishing everyone a happy (and safe) Sunday.

This was fun and light and I really enjoyed it - and then the constructors' commentary made me love it. I hadn't caught that all the theme boxes were contained in women's names, or that no men were mentioned. As another commenter pointed out, even the schools named in one of the clues are women's colleges. And for anyone still upset about the theme words: these two women constructors literally cut those old-school terms in half! Is that not pretty fabulous?!

"Shell fish" made me giggle when it finally fell... but I'll be laughing about "Service agreement" all day! Thank you for the fun puzzle, Mr. Cotham - I'll be looking forward to your next. A happy Friday to all :-)

Ooh, that NW! Everything else fell as a Saturday generally does for me... but confidently sticking in oneSPEED was my undoing for quite a long time, because of course it absolutely prevented me from seeing any of the crosses. Once it occurred to me that TWO fit just as reasonably in the space where I'd had one, this section fell smoothly as well - but that was by far the closest I've come to a look-up in a long time! Thanks for the extra chew on this first morning home from the hospital... I will be leaning more heavily than usual on the crosswords for entertainment over the next few months as I work to repair my horse-induced broken pelvis 😅

Absolutely love a Sunday exercise of this type - filling in the non-themers as best I can, looking quite blindly at the circles, and then getting not just one but two aha moments: first the worms in the holes and second what they did to the back half of each entry. What a delight. As I was tapping over towards the comments to share this observation, I found myself wondering how many folks were going to be here complaining that the puzzle was "too _______ by half." Usually it's "clever," of course, but I think here we have also a "cutesy" or two (what makes a puzzle cutesy vs clever I'm not sure) and I imagine some other options as well were I to look over all 400 and something comments more closely. Who decided that this is the thing to say when what you really mean is you didn't like how difficult it was, and why is it always by half? I'm at a loss. I personally find the description overused by three-quarters at least. In any case: thank you to Mr. Schiff for the fun and satisfying solve, and happy Sunday to you all.

A satisfying one that started with the feeling that I would only ever manage the NW corner, but like a good crossword should, it led me just clearly enough into the next chunk and the next. Really fun, faster than my average time. Also, I like the crossing at 24. I knew SHEL well as a kid, with an English teacher grandma who made sure I had all his poetry books, but I was oddly delighted a couple decades later to learn that another big outlet for his work was... Playboy Magazine. Something about a writer who knew so well how to do insightful kid stuff for kids and decidedly adult stuff for adults is appealing. Happy Saturday to you all.

A perfect Saturday - very few fill-ins at first pass, some long entries that I got relatively quickly, some that were straightforward but with enough possible alternatives that I really couldn't decide at first, and some that I just didn't know without a lot of crosses (and the crosses all came in a similar range of challenge level!) Thought I was doing great when I took the NE down, only to have misdirects in every other section take me down for awhile. Did more backspacing on this puzzle than I have for any other in a very long time, and enjoyed every tap. Thank you to Barbara and Lewis, and maybe especially to you, Lewis, because of the reminder that I so appreciate not only your kind and thoughtful comments in the discussion but your outstanding constructions as well! Know that your time and effort is widely appreciated.

Gosh this was smooth and fun. A little bit of fussing in the north (dumping "I guess so" for YEAHFINE obviously made a big difference), and is it terrible that I'm still laughing at the HORNYTOAD ending in SEXED? Well, now you all know I'm actually a 13-year-old boy housed in a 44-year-old woman's body. Thank you as always to the constructors for sharing your creation with us, and happy Friday to all.

What a fun puzzle with an adorable animation to wrap it up! We - okay, I, since my husband tends to go along agreeably with whatever I have to say in this arena - have had a fair amount of (artificial) Christmas tree uproar in the last couple of years, thanks to moving and hospital stays and hard-to-ignore summertime tree discounts etc., but ours is up and tall and lit and decorated and awaiting only gifts and a collar to wrap the base, which I will finish shortly; my sister is a nurse hard at work for the day, so we will do most of our celebrating tomorrow (and I will be grateful for the extra 24 hours in which to cram tasks :-) Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Joyous and healthy holidays to all my fellow puzzlers.

Wasn't sure I was going to find holds in this one, but then it fell section by section. I find that one of the hardest but most useful things to be able to do is go back and review which things you've already entered that may in fact be wrong. (ringS for BANDS, in my case today.) Thank you for the fun and the crunch, Mr. Last! I cannot read the word FORTHWITH without hearing it in Det. Reagan's voice. Regarding the photo ahead of today's column: I knew before reading the caption where it would say the picture was taken, because that little fellow is an Indian Spitz - a breed not recognized in the US but which we would be smart to welcome. We have one, a rescue from Bangalore by way of New Jersey, and although he is as barktastic as they come, he is also the most sensitive and loyal little guardian I've ever known; if he thinks I'm upset he will wrap his paws over my shoulders and give me an actual hug. They're the prettiest cream color as well - slightly unusual for a spitz, which is more often a purer white. 10/10 do recommend.

I *love* it when I have to work hard in every single corner and the pieces gradually fall... easier ones go too quickly and then the fun is over for the day! Very happy the answer was indeed DERATS, even though I had to tap that in one uncertain letter at a time, and loved the spanners - totally in line with their clues but open (and long) enough to need some crosses to get going in the right direction. Thanks for the fun, Mr. Slonecker!

Come on, rebus-hating friends. Of all rebuses, this was a perfect one to have on a day besides Thursday or Sunday: VERY precise and accessible cluing for the theme answers, a clear and cute revealer... what more could you want? This was really fun and definitely made me smile. Happy Wednesday!

That was really hard - thank you for the extra time I got to enjoy chewing my way through! Quite apart from everything I usually say about complaints of excessive difficulty... why on Earth would anyone be mad about a longer playing time? Isn't that better value for the subscription money so many folks bellyache about spending?

Ohhhhh now this... THIS is the kind of puzzle I love to start my Saturday on. At first pass I had COTTA and IBIZA and ZOO and that's it. Gradually built the SW corner literally a few letters at a time: an establishment serving shots is probably some kind of BAR... a _A_O_ for lords - a MANOR!, _ _ _ _ IM_ featuring valor has gotta be IWOJIMA, and on around the puzzle. Got the NW next, then the NE, then the SE plus some in the sort of central area (I'll remember GALOPS and ELLER going forward.) Got it in 11:18 over my average, and I appreciate every extra second of the fun. Extremely satisfying, Mr. Ezersky. Thank you for the opportunity to work those muscles!

Well. I was taken in by every misdirect here and enjoyed every one. I would never have unraveled the NE except that after awhile it became clear that the college basketball powerhouse was not going to be a school name, so as a UConn person I threw HUSKIES in there with my fingers (paws?) crossed, and it was a lucky break. FAMOUSPOTATOES absolutely took me out when I finally - finally! - got it, and eventually I realized that I needed to go back and think with my homonym brain. A delight. On another note: I don't blame anyone who had MCATS to start with - I did the same. I do, however, take issue with those coming here to insist that ORALS is incorrect... all you proud physicians are aware that the PhD has been a doctorate for *vastly* longer than the MD, yes? Academic history is really kind of interesting, and for those not familiar with it, I suspect the history of the medical doctorate is particularly so. Happy Saturday to all!

This was *fabulous*. That feeling when I've only managed to fill in like two short across answers in the entire thing and I'm going to be pressing ahead based entirely on my luck with the downs plus a splash (maybe a big splash lol) of coincidental alignment with the constructor's wavelength makes me feel like I am headed for a worthy fight. (Thankfully I did not have to scribble down the rules of math in time to engage, unlike poor GALOIS.) And a worthy fight it was, although in the end just eight seconds over my average. (I did say it might have been a big splash of wavelength alignment.) Thanks for this, Mr. Walden - will be looking forward to your next for sure.

Well, personally, I love 44A. I'm probably two to three times the age of people who say it regularly, but as a former high school teacher I find youthful slang interesting and entertaining, and given that it was English I taught, I'm also always interested in how language evolves. In particular, I have a soft spot for the phrases that sound harsher than they are generally intended, just because the contrast is funny to me, and WEIRDFLEXBUTOK is right up there with "say less," which is probably my favorite because it just sounds so insulting while actually reflecting enthusiasm. Anyway, thought this was a great puzzle. Anyone else looking forward to the start of the Boswords Fall Crossword League?

That was TOUGH for me, but got it with no lookups about four minutes slower than my average. Noticed myself using two strategies today more often than I usually do: testing letters that I *think* might fit something I vaguely sense could be correct (eg BOOKON, although I was really blind to CD as the rest of the answer for entire minutes), and explicitly considering synonyms (eg for 34A I was on "baste" for awhile, until the slangier interpretation of the clue gradually bubbled its way to the surface.) Made for a fun and extremely satisfying solve - to twist on some frequent comments, I PAY for this subscription and I LOVE when I get MY MONEY'S WORTH!! Happy Saturday to you all. Mom is home from the hospital (post-stroke... post-Covid... AND post-pneumonia!), so I think I'll bring her down to my house to do some puttering around and to eat some of the strawberry trifle I made for her birthday :-)

Absolutely delightful! Remarkably smooth sailing for me - got DIRTYMIND right off, and even had NOBACKSIES but took it out until the crossings indicated I should have kept it - until the SE corner, where I had to slow down and try a couple educated guesses, starting with ACRE and STAR. This is the strategy I use when I think I'm about to be stuck: instead of typing in only the answers I'm ink-sure about, which is normally what I do, I try to relax down to only needing to be pencil-sure 😅 Not easy for me, but often enough it's the key to melting an otherwise totally frozen chunk. Loved STAIRMASTER, SCREAMQUEEN (and I wish the original clue had stuck, especially given how often we're entering EKE or EKING!), and DOGGROOMER. The balance between OSIRIS and AMONRA (whose third letter I left out until the crossings came through) was lovely. Thanks for the fun, Mr. Koppy!

What a delight. Smooth and fun with the very cute animation to wrap it up. I did notice some particularly fresh cluing for some common answers, so I was happy John was pleased with his work as well. And for anyone who doesn't know, Boswords does a fabulous job of putting on a couple of crossword tournaments and a couple of leagues each year, in very large part thanks to John's work, which he does with grace and humor - I've emailed with him more than once, and he is always lovely to interact with. Congratulations on hitting the full week's cycle, John!

Wow, this was great!! Had to use all my skills for this one, right down to looking at the start of 31D and the start of 37A to figure out what letter was likely to fit in their cross (not that many readily follow both HA- and R-, and guessing that it was probably I is what allowed me to unlock the rest of the SW.) Still managed to get it a few seconds ahead of my Saturday average, too. Never in all my years of crosswording (or getting degrees in English, or being an English teacher) do I recall OMOO, but I got it with my last fill-in and thereby learned something I'll try to keep in mind going forward. Thank you for the Saturday-worthy crunch, Mr. Lieberman. More like this please!

I have filled in all of ten answers, but the trick has already come through clearly (and beautifully) - and I just want to say: what a feat. To find stacks that work either with or without the color word in them strikes me as pretty incredible. Looking forward to coming back here to read what I'm sure will be a whole lot of bellyaching, but for now I'm going to go back to the puzzle and enjoy every box of it.

Thirty seconds less than my average Tuesday time 🤷‍♀️ Cute and fun. Not necessarily my favorite ever, but also far from my least favorite and certainly no reason that I can see to get nasty about the constructor. Goodness. To those here complaining, I hope dearly that this puzzle is the worst thing that's happened to you in 2026 so far, and that it may remain so for the rest. To everyone else, just a regular old wish that the new year is treating you well!

Oh my goodness. I haven't finished the puzzle yet and I haven't read the column or the other comments, but: TWENTY FIVE ACROSS. *Immediately* one of my favorite clue/answer pairings of all time. This makes my day and honestly possibly my week, especially because when I was a kid this time of the year is when we always watched that movie. I'll have to find it again soon - my partner has never seen it. Thank you to the constructor and/or editors who came up with it!