Oh, this was fun. I really liked this themeless. I finished it this morning in the car while Hope was driving, on our way to Maine to pick up our younger daughter from camp. Hope was definitely helpful, so shout out to her.
Truthfully, the long answers win the day in this grid. The trade-off is a fair amount of less than LOVABLE fill, but the only area I really didn't dig was the SW corner.
My first entry was SHE, but that didn't help much. What broke the NW corner was hitting on TIMETRAVEL for 17A: Basis of the Doctor's adventures on "Doctor Who". With that in place, much came into focus. I toyed with "safe" for 19A: Call heard at Arlington (TAPS), thinking of the Texas Rangers stadium, but really it was a lot more straightforward than I expected. GARBLE and CLARET are very nice.
Funny to have both PHILEAS Fogg and Charlie CHAPLIN in the puzzle, crossing each other, as both have been recently featured in the NYT crossword. Thank goodness for the latter, as originally I had PHInEAS (Trollope readers will recognize the source of my error. Frannie?).
SHETLANDPONY and EXTRAVAGANZA are topnotch entries. It's surprising to find out that GRAPENUTS have been around since 1897, but as Hope pointed out, are we okay that the clue asks for the "Breakfast brand," when the brand is really Post here? Thoughts?
The SW has the crosswordese collection of ALTA and LEOI (ugh). While I did like THEXFILES and HALTERTOP as answers, I'm not sure they were worth those two.
Meanwhile, in the SE, TRINILOPEZ was familiar to us, but I needed almost all of the crosses to actually enter it. ANTICIPATE is fine, but I liked GOESEASYON better. 48D: Pharmacy figure (COPAY) is a fine clue, but really not the most pleasant of thoughts.
1A: Rap group whose name comes from a martial arts film (WUTANGCLAN) - B+. I don't know much about rap, but I know this group is supposed to be great. And it's an outstanding name, and a good 1A.
Fave: NODICE (45D: "Ain't gonna happen"). I love the answer, and I love even more that I had ____C_ and got it off of that.
Least fave: LEOI. Has to be.
Fun Friday. Here's looking forward to Saturday!
- Colum
38:29
ReplyDeleteTook me a bit longer than it took Colum, and a bit longer than a normal Friday time for me. WUTANGCLAN is an OK 1A, but I have no interest in rap or in that particular group. I probably would have gone with a B- or C+. TIMETRAVEL seemed a bit obvious, but I've been a DW fan for slightly more than four decades now, so maybe it wasn't so for some. SHETLANDPONY was a nice long, as was EXTRAVAGANZA. I think that GRAPENUTS counts as a brand, with Post being its parent company. I'd never heard of an IGUANODON. ALANIS (from the debut album) is on the YBH party mix.