AM

I knew we were in trouble with HDTVSET. Much of the rest of the puzzle consists of dated and really bad fill. The concept of the puzzle isn’t bad but the execution left a lot to be desired.

I guess I’m in the minority here—I thought this theme was a real stretch. To come up with the phrase “money changes everything” (not exactly am every day phrase) then to figure out that each themed answer contains ‘all’ which is a synonym for everything and then to replace ‘all’ with the currency of the stated nation in the clue is asking quite a lot. I finished the puzzle but never understood the premise until I came here. Never had that “aha!” moment a good Thursday puzzle provides.

KAYO, OHDANG and ENS-enough said about this truly ugly puzzle. One of the worst we’ve seen in some time.

A grind that brought no pleasure at all to the solver. Riffle shuffle as the reveal? Come on.

Like so many others, I just loved this puzzle!

I think ultimately this puzzle is a failure because I didn’t know the theme as I was working it, the theme never occurred to me after I finished it and I really didn’t care. It was entirely missing the aha moment in addition to having some truly awful crosswordese (which many others have already mentioned).

Impressive construction and fun to solve—well done!

Not a Monday puzzle level of difficulty. Some really bad clues here

AISHA and SOLOMON NORTHUP have no place in a Tuesday puzzle. ROTO is also questionable.

Mukbangs crossing Iga was appalling editing.

Gosh I think a root canal would have been a more pleasurable experience than this puzzle. Just an unpleasant and tiresome chore.

The problem with the puzzle, for me, was I experienced the exact opposite of what the editors notes promised—where was the aha! moment? Honestly, this puzzle was a real grind and not a lot of fun. I think the fact that the app did not require rebus entries made it even more problematic. To me it just looked like random letters were left off various words. Finally, a puzzle that requires the amount of explanation that this one did is probably not a good sign.

Fun puzzle but the phrase is not “return tray tables.”

Never heard of a MOMAGER before.