New York Times, Friday, April 27, 2018

As you probably guessed, this puzzle started with SEETHING and SEE THINGS. Really looking forward to seeing how everyone reacts to such a long "dupe"—at 1-Across/1-Down, no less! Working with stacked 8s crossing stacked 9s was brutal, though, especially since two of the long entries were already locked in. Not thrilled with the resulting crosswordese, though I do really like BEER MONEY, EYE CANDY, LOSE SLEEP OVER, ETHICAL DILEMMAS, and especially I CAN TAKE A HINT. All in all, I appreciate that Will let me bring some variety to the Friday themeless slot, and I'm pleased with how this puzzle turned out given the constraints. Hope you enjoy!

I enjoy it when themeless constructors do something a little different — the creativity is much appreciated, helping to keep crosswords fresh and potentially even evolving. I'll admit I didn't see the SEETHING / SEE THINGS "dupe" David mentioned, but I enjoyed the Easter egg. I thought the puzzle was fun and well-crafted already, and that bonus elevated this one to my POW! pick.

It's so tough to create a themeless around ultra-long seed entries, and when you interlock four of them together, it's even tougher. The problem is that these long entries usually take up so much real estate that there's not much room left for other good entries. The puzzle then lives or dies on the quality of just those long entries. That's a lot of pressure on those few entries!

I enjoyed the long ones a lot today, and the puzzle could have *almost* stood on those alone. I CAN TAKE A HINT is fantastic, one worth seeding a themeless with. ETHICAL DILEMMAS is great too, and LOSE SLEEP OVER ain't too shabby.

CABLE TELEVISION isn't as good, as most people say "cable TV." But it does work.

Most constructors would put a black square at the T of TREPAN or the H of HECATE — as David mentioned, these types of huge corners with two triple-stacks intersecting each other are usually to be avoided at all costs. Way too hard to execute on with both snazziness and smoothness.

I enjoyed that NW corner a lot. ENTRANCE is more a workmanlike entry, but I appreciated how changing the stressed syllable morphs the meaning of the word completely. And riffing off the SEE THINGS / SEETHING "dupe," I liked the quasi-echo of ENTRECHAT and ENTRANCE. They look so similar but etymologically aren't. Cool!

And some great clues. My favorite: [One getting hit after hit?] made me laugh, as there's quite a bit of pot usage in Seattle these days. STONERs!

There's a bit too much short glue, NNW, ESTO, HAR, INE, etc. for my taste, but most themelesses featuring interlocked long seed entries have way more than this — as do themelesses with corners like the NW / SE! So very well done overall.