Five special characters in the grid, reflecting the N with a tilde used in SPANISH. We've seen this concept before, but I like many of the ...
read moreFive special characters in the grid, reflecting the N with a tilde used in SPANISH. We've seen this concept before, but I like many of the touches Alex added. I liked having SPANISH as a revealer — without this, I don't know that I would have picked up on the theme — and I loved ESPANOL right next to it. It's hard to stack specific answers together, and it's even harder to do that when they're running through a themer (EL NINO). Very cool.
I appreciated the bonuses, COPERNICUS and GEOLOGISTS making for a science-y mini-theme. Given how so many people seem to dismiss science these days, I love the effort to pair up these long entries.
As a basketball fan, I love getting Dikembe MUTOMBO in the grid. As a Sonic fan, I hate Dikembe MUTOMBO. (His #8 seeded Nuggets upsetting my #1 Sonics was over 20 years ago. But my friends and I still can't joke about it.)
WOOT! made me smile — it's a slangy expression of exhilaration that my friends and I use. LT DAN did too, as I have fond memories of "Forrest Gump." But, I heard from a constructor friend that Will pointed out LT DAN in one of his puzzles as an undesirable dab of crossword glue. I quickly changed its assigned score on my list! It's so subjective, but Will is the final arbiter.
Good gridwork, especially given five pairs of theme answers, plus SPANISH as a revealer. With so much inflexibility within the grid, to get by with just some TNG (I'm a huge fan of "Star Trek: the Next Generation, but TNG is tough to figure out), IN A NET (sounds like a partial), SEP. Well, I didn't care for the combination of ERINNA (ancient poet) and IN AT in the lower right corner, but it was totally worth it to get that cool mash-up of SPANISH right next to ESPANOL / EL NINO.
Since I've seen this concept done a few times before, it would have been great to get something extra today. Not sure what that is, though.
Overall, the puzzle's solid execution still made for a fun solve.