Thursday, October 29, 2026, Sam Ezersky

Apparently not everyone got the memo when it comes to the overarching theme of this Halloweek, I guess. There's nothing remotely spooky about today's puzzle! Unless you think an EXDA shouldn't be in politics, I guess.

Instead, we get an amusing reparsing of phrases where the first word or words can be reinterpreted as verbal hesitation. Thus, the classic comparison of two people who can never get along is instead discussing two paint bases (LIKEOILANDWATER). I particularly liked 55A: It's ... (what am I trying to say?) ... it's what my dentist uses (YOUKNOWTHEDRILL). I chuckled at this one.

I'm not convinced by the use of giant commas in the grid to help us see what's going on. Are they necessary? They certainly helped me see how to solve some of the answers by showing me where word breaks in the phrases occurred. But I could have solved the puzzle without them, and maybe have found the "aha!" moments on my own. Your mileage may vary, I expect. Also, I think the NYT likes putting in visual elements now to spice up the grid, so it's become a trademark.

SALMAN Rushdie

Some fun clues today. 25D: She has a lot of young followers (MOTHERDUCK) is a nice example of this style of direct referent clue. 48A: Paper you can trip on? (LSDTAB) took so many crosses before I understood what we were looking for. But how about 57A: Cause of dog bites (LICE) - no question mark here at all! I love that the clue changes the meaning to ways in which dogs are bit.

It's a fun theme and a strong grid. Keep up the good work, Sam! You might have a future in puzzling. Now we just have to get you to accept more acceptable words in the Spelling Bee.

- Colum

Wednesday, October 27, 2026, Daniel Grinberg

Call me late to the party, but I'm now noticing a theme unifying this week's puzzles. It might have something to do with the word I saw in the Connections the other day: "Halloweek."

Today we get a theme of SCAREQUOTES - not the indicators of irony, but actual movie quotes from horror films. I've seen three of the four: HERESJOHNNY is such a classic, with Jack Nicholson peeking through the bathroom door he's taken an axe to. ITSALIVEITSALIVE from Frankenstein (or Young Frankenstein, to name a less scary version). BEAFRAIDBE / VERYAFRAID is from The Fly, a movie I did not enjoy watching when it came out in the 1980s.

The final quote is from Saw, which I hear is a good movie, but I do not enjoy torture scenes, so I have never approached it. Nonetheless, IWANTTOPLAYAGAME is classic.

Bonus theme material: OSCAR Isaac as Victor Frankenstein

The grid is supersized today, a massive 16 x 16, in order to fit the two long theme answers. For all of that grid, we don't get many tricksy clues. Two of them have a slightly blue quality, with 22A: Top choices? (BRAS) and 4D: One chasing the big bucks? (DOE).

Nice shout out to constant crossword friend, ABBA, acknowledging the delay between albums. Will we have more Halloween themed puzzles before week's end? I'd bet the answer is likely yes.

- Colum

Tuesday, October 27, 2026, Jeff Chen and Bharati Hemmady

Getting going a little earlier this morning! Today's puzzle confused me, unusually for a Tuesday. It took me quite a while of staring at the theme answers to understand what was going on.

Our revealer is FLYBYNIGHT, and we're told it's a hint to the ends of the theme answers. Usually, this means the final word, but in this case it refers to the ending letters. At the ends of each answer is hidden a nocturnal flyer. First, in MOCKCOMBAT, there is a bat; then in WOOLLYMAMMOTH, we find a moth. There's an owl in PROBOWL, and most amusingly in BAITANDSWITCH we find a witch!

That's a cute twist at the end, and fitting for the season.

The great and lamented lost Catherine OHARA

11D: Words said with reservation? (SAVETHEDATE) - nice question-mark clue. I chuckled as I entered the answer. And speaking of chuckling, 25D: "Laughing" birds from Down Under (KOOKABURRAS) is a great long answer. I had never heard of ANKE Huber, so I second-guessed myself for an instant, but there was only one possible letter to go in there.

Lastly, 67A: Biology class? (GENUS) is very nice.

Hope your Tuesday goes well.

- Colum

Monday, October 26, 2026, Kevin Christian and Andrew Carla Michaels

Late post today because we were out late last night at a show - an all-lesbian Radiohead cover band called Labiahead! They were absolutely brilliant, performing two entire albums of intense challenging incredible music. But I got back way too late to do the puzzle and write the review.

Today's Monday puzzle offers four theme answer phrases with the letters S-H-O-T in order, spread out. The revealer is SCATTERSHOT, a literal description of the process. I had thought that there might be another layer after the first one (SQUASHCOURT) where you take a shot by hitting the ball around. I suppose JUSTTHISONETIME is similar to taking a single shot, but the other two (SMASHMOUTH and PSYCHEDOUT) don't follow the concept, sadly.

TALIA Shire

Do you ever get surprised that an answer will take up as many letters in the grid as it does? I had that experience with DISTINCT. Somehow the eight letters available seemed way too many for the answer.

The other thing I noted today was the sudden ubiquity of the answer HYENA. These things feel like they go in cycles for me. I'll notice one entry making appearances regularly for a while, then another answer will catch my attention. I'm not sure why that is.

LITHUANIA, POESY, HYMN - some very fun answers today. Overall a smooth and fun Monday.

- Colum

Sunday, October 25, 2026, Dylan Schiff and John Kugelman

RELATIVELY SPEAKING

Hola, all our loyal readers! After a week suffering from the actual influenza, I'm happy to have my health mostly back, and the opportunity to review more New York Times crossword puzzles! Kudos to Frances for another fine week of pun-filled reviews.

Today's theme takes phrases of two words where the first word ends in -ER and pretends that those words are actually comparative adjectives. Reclue in humorous ways, and wackiness, as they say, ensues. These are, in fact, silly in lovely ways.

Take 24A: Peridot vis-à-vis jade? (OLIVERSTONE) - one stone is more olive than the other, you see! Just the idea of "oliver" as an adjective makes me chuckle. I suppose that's partly because one of my dogs has that name for himself.

I also laughed at 63A: Zipper up vis-à-vis zipper down (SHUTTERFLY) and 111A: "OMG THIS IS AWESOME!!!!" vis-à-vis "good job i guess"? (HYPERTEXT). 

I am not convinced by BOMBERJACKET (is a blazer supposed to be more dope than a windbreaker? I think that depends on the windbreaker). 

Hilary Duff as Lizzie MCGUIRE

In other unknown areas of knowledge, what are UVTATTOOS? Looking them up, this seems like a pretty niche thing. How often will you be showing your tattoos under UV light? In my world, never. That's how often. But I also don't have any tattoos, so I'm probably not one to talk.

Also, who knew NEWTS had gone on at least six different space missions? Nice clue to spice up our frequent crossword puzzle visitors (at least "eft" has gone the way of the "dodo").

18D: Cover letters, say? (TEACH) required all of the crosses to get. What an unexpected twist the clue takes! 

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge the chutzpah of crossing SIGN and SEGNO, as well as UHNO and OHOK. It's rare that a Sunday puzzle can SATISFY, but this one's pretty good.

- Colum

Saturday, October 24, 2026, Robert Logan

In a reversal of the usual order of things, I completed today's puzzle in half the time of yesterday's. Maybe the shape of the puzzle meant that everything was in my wheelhouse. :) I was able to drop in PEACENICKS and HYDROPONICS, 1A and 10A respectively, which made almost all the Down answers across the top immediately gettable - all that is, except for 3D: "Butter up?" Even with the AR start and an answer of only five letters, I was not able to predict the outcome. It was in the stars that I would eventually discover the answer was ARIES, but I did not immediately understand *why* it was the answer. In time, the answer to this particular Question Mark Clue (QMC) resolved from a series of letters to the image of ARIES as a ram, an animal that could be considered a "butter," which, as a constellation appears up in the heavens. Ha! That's some MENSA level work.

Another fun QMC was "Tip of Baja?" for PESO, a nice twist on clues relating to local currencies. I enjoyed  two other QMCs, "Singer who had us at 'Hello'?" (ADELE), and "Drawings of various states?"  for LOTTOS. 

In the non-QMC category, "Perfect place to be" for EDEN and its companion, "Perfect places to be" for UTOPIAS were spot on. Another fun pairing was 7D: INEPT ("Like Inspector Clouseau, despite all of his successes" and 5D: EPT ("Opposite of 7-Down, humorously"). I especially liked the clue/answer pairs "Likes and dislikes, collectively" for TASTE, and AWARE for "Witting." 

With a PILEON/PYLON of three-letter answers, clueing makes a difference, and in this category, standouts were "Attribution word" for PER, the ambiguous "Connection letters" for DSL, the self-referential "Crossword clue type" for PUN, and "Basic logic gate" for AND. Nerd much? :)

The only thing that RAMONEs to be mentioned is the round of fine long answers including ROYALPAIN, SLEEPDEPRIVED, and NONLINEAR. All in all, a virtually STAINLESS end-of-the-week puzzle.

~Frannie.

Friday, October 23, 2026, Katie Hoody

Katie Hoody appears to be able to generate excellent puzzles with the regularity of a METRONOME :). I wish I could say I SPED through the grid, but according to the app I solve on, I completed the puzzle two minutes slower than my average. I was held up at the end by a Natick, at the cross between 2D: "Emma ___, protagonist of 'A Woman of Substance'" and 18A: "American court org." I had to run the alphabet on that square and wait to hear the completion jingle, which didn't happen until I got to the letter T, finally revealing HARTE and USTA. 

My lack of knowledge of American court org acronyms aside, the rest was NITRO. There were several super dupers including "Annual appraisal statement" (WHATAYEAR) - ha! - "Boundaries between areas with different amounts of coverage" (TANLINES), "Kind of joint associated with smoking, informally" (BBQ), "They can help one get a leg up, informally" (QUADS), and "Track event won by the fastest four legs" (HORSERACE) and if you told me that the constructor did not know that relayRACE also fit perfectly in that spot, I would say, ITSALLALIE. :)

QMCs took a back seat to the above today, but there were still two good ones : "What all the buzz is about?" (WASPNEST) and "Cellphone hot line?" (SEXT). I also enjoyed the economy of the C/AP "A.M. cupfuls" for OJS. CHIEF for "Most imporant" was admirable in that the answer didn't end in a guessable EST.

It was a nice call back to THOSE days with "Three-time Olympic figure skating champion" Sonja HENIE. I also enjoyed the accurate and amusing DATINGTIP "'Let go of unrealistic expectations, e.g." Ha. Fill-wise,  my expectations were met with CLAD, SLANTRHYME, AFTERGLOW, and NIXES. 

Besides the Natick mentioned above, my only other trouble spot was parsing the clever-but-confusing-to-me clue "With whom one pools pounds for quarters" for FLATMATE. It put a real spanner in the works, but I was chuffed when I figured it out. :) 

~Frannie.