Alex C

Love the NYT crossword. I have noticed a troubling tend towards trivia as a crossword clue. I don't know who played so-and-so in some particular movie it TV show. I have no chance of working it out from cross-clue letters, leaving me to look it up or get stuck. Hasn't always been that way.

I enjoy punny puzzles. This one left me cold. So many of the answers, for me, were rather "meh." Not half as clever as the constructor thought. B- Also ~25% of across clues were just straight up trivia. What the challenge there?