New York Times, Monday, April 14, 2014

This crossword is one of those cases where Will kind of deserves co-authorship. The original puzzle I sent to him featured a 16x15 grid that featured THEYREWATCHINGUS in the centre. I battled to find a 15-letter THEYRE answer to balance the other two themers... Will liked the concept, and casually suggested I used THEYREGRRRRREAT and slot it in as the final answer. Such an elegant answer — why didn't think of that!? This theme is born out of exasperation with Internet commenters' poor grammar.

Super-clean start to the week from a highly experienced constructor and reviewer over at Crossword Fiend. Today's theme uses three grid-spanning entries, the three homonyms THERE, THEIR, and THEY'RE. Not a ground-breaking theme, but certainly workable for a Monday.

What I appreciated most about this puzzle was its high level of smoothosity. Normally we see at least a little OLEO, some entry rarely (or never) used outside the world of crosswords. Gareth works over his grid with obvious care, allowing me to sail right through the puzzle. Nice stuff, excellent workmanship.

With only three themers, it's extremely important to choose them wisely. When there are five themers, if one misses or falls a little short, an 80% hit rate isn't bad. But with only three, a miss on one means a dismal 67%. So I was glad to see these three sparkly phrases, each of which I really appreciated. It would have been perfect (GRRRRREAT, should I say?) if the third had been another political line, for consistency's sake. But I can't think of another right off the bat, at least not one so iconic as the first two.

Given the light theme density, I would have liked to have seen more long fill out of this grid. ST LUCIA and AGE GAPS add some zest, along with FOODIE and PAYOLA, but there's not much else to pep up the puzzle. Having a few eight-letter (or longer) entries would have been really nice — removing one pair of black squares (or moving one set) to create a pair of long downs could have given the puzzle more pizzazz. But it's quite possible that doing this might eat away at the smooth factor, and I wouldn't want that. Always the trade-offs.

Overall, I enjoy seeing the variety even within Monday NYT puzzles. I could imagine giving this one to a beginner friend, in hopes of him/her finishing — a doable first puzzle for someone (aside from perhaps the AGRA/ST LUCIA crossing, which I think is fair but possibly hard for beginners). That's important in my opinion, as I believe drawing in new solvers is critical for the NYT crossword to survive and thrive. This puzzle likely will fall short for more experienced solvers whose expectations are higher, but the good thing about a daily puzzle is that over the course of a month or even a week, there will usually something for everyone.