BEQ 7:52 (Eric) rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) rate it
LAT (Gareth) rate it
NYT 6:54 (ZDL) rate it
Universal 5:03 (Eric) rate it
USA Today 10:17 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 12:13 (Jim) rate it
Note: As of today, we will be forgoing star ratings for puzzles, but do please continue to give us your puzzle reactions in the comments section below. Thank you!
Desirée Penner & Jeff Sinnock’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Place Holders”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are famous names (fictional or not) that have a US state as either the first or last name. The states are replaced with their two-letter abbreviations for the crosses and squeezed into a single square each. The revealer is STATE YOUR NAME (15d, [Common request from a prosecutor, and a hint to the asterisked answers]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Place Holders” · Desirée Penner & Jeff Sinnock · Thu., 5.1.25
- 4d. [*Character who famously said “Don’t call me Junior!”] (IN) JONES.
- 11d. [*Miley Stewart’s alter ego in a Disney Channel series] HANNAH (MT).
- 39d. [*1992 portrayer of Malcolm X] DENZEL (WA).
- 48d. [*Writer who penned the 1927 essay “The Art of Fiction”] (VA) WOOLF.
Great theme. It took me way too long to see it, but I enjoyed the aha moment that came with it. I can’t believe it hasn’t been done before. (Maybe it has; I don’t feel like looking right now.) It does feel a little odd to have a mix of real and fictional names, but at least there’s two of each.
That said…oof. This puzzle is bonkers. It’s not often I’m going to call out a grid, but it needs it this time. With a theme reliant on famous names, maybe try to limit the number of proper names in your grid. This puzzle seemed to do the opposite and cram in as many as possible. Let me count the names: RAMI Malek, JEN(nifer) Garner, TISH Addams, FAY Weldon, Hugh HEF(ner), KEV(in) of Home Alone (even though he’s never called that in the film), Elsa PERETTI, CALE Yarborough, Phillipa SOO, Roman goddess CERES, NEDS Lamont and namesakes, Vietnamese emperor Bao DAI (this is the point where you just shake your head and laugh), ARI Shapiro, and Butch GORING. And that’s not to mention the four theme answers and other proper names DEIMOS and ULAN. And crossing UAR with DAI is simply unconscionable. Yeesh!
There are some nice bits of fill like IN TOO DEEP, SAMURAI, OBVIOUS, ACOLYTE, AMPHIBIAN, and JALAPEÑOS, but what I’m going to remember about this grid is that it went way too far with the proper names. I would much rather have a smooth grid with fewer sparkly entries than one like this with sparkle that comes with a ton of trivia.
I enjoyed the theme but not the solve due to the over-the-top reliance on proper names. 2.5 stars.
Justin Werfel’s Fireball Crossword, “Slippery Characters” – Jenni’s write-up
I knew there was something going on and I thought I’d figured it out and I almost had. Not quite.
In 8 rows of the grid, an I slips from one answer to another.
Fireball crossword, April 30, 2025, Justin Werfel, “Slippery Characters,” solution grid
- 14a [Any of more than a thousand for Edison] should be PATENT and 15a [Office of a certain monk] should be PRIORATE. What we have instead is PATIENT and PRORATE.
- 17a [Tree, e.g.] should be CORNER and 18a [Brains] should be GENIUSES so we get CORNIER and GENUSES.
- 26a [“I don’t like my choices”] should be NEITHER and 29a [Dupes] should be CONS and we have NETHER and ICONS.
- 52a [Rescuers] should be SAVIORS and 55a [“Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now” author Osnos] should be EVAN which leaves us with SAVORS and EVIAN. This was my error, as you can see – I had SAVERS which of course makes sense and I thought the crossing was a play on MEDIAL. Wrong.
- 62a [Opulent] should be PALATIAL and 66a [Brought up] should be REARED and we have PALATAL and REAIRED.
Not my favorite. REAIRED is strained at best and PRIORATE is obscure. I’m also not a fan of the unnecessarily obscure reference to the Biden book – there are a lot of better-known EVANs. Fun trick, though, and overall a well-constructed puzzle.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: clearly I’d never heard of EVAN Osnos or his book. I also did not know that OSCAR the Grouch has a pet worm named Slimey.
Aidan Deshong and Adam Levav’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Easy (6m54s)
Aidan Deshong and Adam Levav’s New York Times crossword, 5/1/25, 0501
Today’s theme: CIRCLE BACK (Brings up a prior topic … or a hint to making sense of the answers to this puzzle’s starred clues)
- BASELINE / BALINESE
- RICOTTA / RIOT ACT
- KIMONOS / MONOSKI
- AVENGER / ENGRAVE
- DUSTPAN / STANDUP
- REVILING / EVIL GRIN
Move the circled letters to the back of each theme entry — two circled letters in the upper half themers, and three circled letters in the lower half themers. I think that’s just a coincidence though?
Cracking: TRES CHIC
Slacking: ILEFT, the oft-overlooked anticlimax to Caesar’s boast — Veni, vidi, vici, discessi
Sidetracking: KIMONOS
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1779 “Going With the Grain” — Eric’s Review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1779 “Going With The Grain” — 5/1/25
Brendan labels this one “Medium” difficulty; I found it to be on the easier end.
The theme is an oft-seen type: Add a string of letters to a common word or phrase and come up with something that’s inherently wacky or that can be given a wacky clue:
- 20A [Benedick’s depressed girlfriend in “Much Ado About Nothing”?] DOWN BEATRICE Downbeat
- 28A [Final figures to think about before going to an electric car?] LAST GAS PRICES Last gasps
- 42A [News bulletin about an upper-arm muscle?] TRICEPS REPORT TPS Report I don’t remember encountering that phrase before, which slowed me down even after I had TRICEPS. It comes from the movie Office Space and refers to meaningless, bureaucratic tasks in a corporate environment. I spent most of my career with one of the least bureaucratic agencies in state government, and most of our tasks were more or less meaningful — even the boring ones.
47A is an extra hint: [Activity many runners do before a marathon, or another name for this puzzle] CARBOLOADING That word sounds perfectly normal to me, but when CARBOLOADS appeared in a recent New York Times puzzle, some people objected that CARBLOAD was more common. Your thoughts?
Finally, if we’ve missed what’s going on, there’s 62A [Grain added to three of the four theme answers in this puzzle] RICE
It’s a perfectly fine theme, if not a novel one.
The slightly choppy grid design gives four eight-letter slots in the Down answers:
- 4D [Plaything for a 35-Across] YARN BALL Of course, to get anything here, you first have to figure out that 35A [Abyssinian, e.g.] is CAT.
- 9D [“A snap!”] SO SIMPLE
- 37D [Soccer player who frequently scores when coming off the bench] SUPER SUB About the only sport I pay even a little attention to is association football. But I don’t remember hearing this term before.
- 38D [Idiot’s grunt, in some memes] HURR DURR I’d never heard that one before.
Other stuff:
- 36A [Where you might catch some butterflies] POOL Nice misdirection. I’m a lousy swimmer and could barely manage the crawl and the backstroke.
- 46A [Yossarian’s tentmate in “Catch-22”] ORR I’m beginning to suspect that Brendan is as big a fan of that novel as I am. I believe New York Times readers chose it as the best novel of the 20th century or the best American novel from the post WW II era, but I can’t find that article. If you’ve never read it, give it a try!
- 5D [Line of dialogue?] ACCENT Clever clue.
- 10D [Arm bones] HUMERI I typically don’t care for Latin plurals, but even I think HUMERUSES would just sound weird. I lost a few seconds here because all I could come up with was ULNA and RADIUS.
- 13D [Dweller in a Mojo Dojo Casa House] KEN As I guessed, it’s from the movie Barbie. I still haven’t seen that, though it’s on my list.
- 28D [Brezhnev of the USSR] LEONID I’m old enough for that to be a gimme, but I wonder if younger solvers knew that one.
Drew Schmenner’s Universal Crossword “Split a Meal” — Eric’s Review
Drew Schmenner’s Universal Crossword “Split a Meal” — 5/1/25
Circles in the grid! Not my favorite thing to see, as in some interfaces, I have trouble reading the circled letters after I’ve filled them in. And, this being Universal, the theme clues include annoying numerical references for the circles (because not all of the newspapers that run Universal puzzles can handle the circles).
Despite that, this was fun, and I filled in the revealer without understanding how the theme worked. A minute later, it clicked:
- 16A [Latte shot] ESPRESSO/18A [Thick coin] NICKEL Sonic I don’t usually misspell words in a grid, especially something as familiar as NICKEL, but I spent about a minute until I realized I had NICKLE. Why? Because English.
- 22A [’50s auto feature inspired by jets] TAIL FINS/24A [Sign prohibiting 180s] NO U–TURNS In ‘N’ Out That California-based chain reached Austin a few years ago, but I’m not sure they are all over the US yet.
- 34A [Bacon and eggs, e.g. … or a theme hint] BREAKFAST FOOD I wondered what Sonic and In ‘N’ Out had to do with breakfast. I don’t know whether either chain serves breakfast, even though I enjoy eating breakfast out. Then I realized that I needed to read it as BREAK FAST FOOD, meaning that the fast food chains were split across two answers. Nice!
- 44A [Catholic Church head] THE POPE/46A [“Aye, captain” : ship :: ___ : kitchen] YES CHEF Popeye’s Has the conclave to select a successor to Pope Francis started? I’m not paying much attention. And is YES CHEF really something said in restaurant kitchens, or is it just something from The Bear?
- 53A [She is considered China’s first supermodel] LIU WEN/56A [Opposite of paradise] DYSTOPIA Wendy’s I don’t pay much attention to supermodels, Chinese or otherwise. The “She is considered” seems superfluous. But bonus points for working DYSTOPIA into a puzzle. Great word that’s unfortunately timely.
Other stuff:
- 58A [Type of Thai curry] PANANG Yum.
- 15D [About to be scolded] IN FOR IT I don’t know why I like this answer, but I do.
- 54D [Name hidden in “macadamia nut”] IAN I lost half a minute trying to get ADA to work. I should know by now that in a clue like this, the name is always split between the two words.
Michael Berg’s USA Today Crossword, “TV Sets” — Emily’s write-up
Tune in!
USA Today, May 01, 2025, “TV Sets” by Michael Berg
Theme: each themer has T—A—
Themers:
- 20a. [Demo product], TRIALVERSION
- 40a. [World traveler’s document], TOURISTVISA
- 59a. [Single-minded concentration], TUNNELVISION
This themer set is giving me vacation vibes for a tourist bent on seeing it all: TRIALVERSION, TOURISTVISA, and TUNNELVISION.
Favorite fill: TEA, DYNAMO, NAAN, and NOOK
Stumpers: SOLOED (needed crossings), ETVOILA (new to me), and OOH (tried “man”, “boy”, and “kid”)
A tricker solve for me today, with a longer time. How’d you all do? I found some of the cluing to be tricky and several were either new to me or I needed crossings. S and SE were particularly tricky areas but I got there in the end.
3.5 stars
~Emily
The WSJ puzzle shows genius. Too tough for me without some help, but hats off. That you had trouble with some of the names is a silly criticism. This wasn’t fun, but it was great.
I don’t think it’s silly at all. In particular, it’s not silly to expect you shouldn’t unless your core knowledge is unusually narrow (as mine sometimes is) need “some help.” I found the puzzle tedious and unfair.
I agree with Jim & John. Way too many obscure names in the grid. The least obscure names were part of the fabulous theme, but the rest of grid was weighed down by obscurity.
NYT puzzle not easy for me, but wonderful construction. Two great puzzles today!
NYT: Kudos to ZDL for his amusing riff on the less-than-stellar partial I LEFT. Nice one!
Agree!
LAT: I liked this theme!
That said, I would have re-worded the distracting non-themer clue in 23a
Why no ratings?
Too many tender egos?
That’s my guess.
Hope it doesn’t wound your ego to discover that you’re wrong.
I’ve been wrong too many times in my 72 years on this planet to worry about my ego. :-)
Evan has often noted that these ratings are between misleading and harmful. Some reasons that they’re misleading include: too small of a sample size to be statistically valid; lack of clarity on criteria for evaluation or interpretation of scale; and invitation for trolling (assigning low score to every puzzle regardless of actual merit).
Why harmful? Evan has pointed out that poor ratings might discourage readers from solving puzzles that they might actually enjoy.
I’ve always agreed with his assessment and resent, for him and all constructors, the notion that they could care less what a small sample of commenters here choose for numerical ratings.
Although for some reason, someone or someones keep assigning every puzzle one star every day, which can’t feel good for the constructors, I think the ratings are helpful in terms of highlighting what puzzles are unusually good. If a puzzle has an unusually high rating, I might do it when I ordinarily would not.
At least for me personally, a low rating isn’t keeping me from doing a puzzle I would normally do. I’m going to do the puzzles I normally do, anyway. It’s the high rating that leads me to do an extra puzzle.
I think the ratings also allow us to engage a bit when we don’t have time to write a comment. I hope the ratings will get restored.
It wasn’t just that they were assigning every puzzle one star every day – they did that as soon as the post went up, often before the puzzle in question was reviewed. Not all the bloggers use the starts (I hardly ever do) and Martin and Evan are right about the non-reproducibility of result.
Knowing someone’s opinion of a puzzle doesn’t tell me anything unless I know the opiner’s reasons. Let’s take the criticisms of today’s WSJ for having too many proper names. That doesn’t bother me. I know it’s a ding for a lot of people and I respect that, but it won’t interfere with my enjoyment, so “Great theme, too many proper names” makes me more likely to do the puzzle than otherwise.
“It’s the high rating that leads me to do an extra puzzle.”
Right, which means you wouldn’t do that puzzle if it had a middle or a low rating. That’s exactly the point: The star ratings were discouraging you from solving puzzles you might have enjoyed, all because of a handful of anonymous cranky solvers downgrading puzzles for any number of trivial reasons that they usually never bothered to explain. That’s why I said over and over that the ratings needed to be abandoned.
Whatever led the team at Fiend to drop them, I’m glad they finally did it.
Evan,
Gotta disagree. I do the NYT daily, I do TNY on Mondays and Tuesdays. Once in a while, if a USA Today or Universal or WSJ is garnering high ratings, I’ll give that puzzle a go. But star ratings are not discouraging me from solving puzzles.
Gary,
If the star ratings weren’t discouraging you from solving puzzles … then why were you solving USA Today or Universal or WSJ puzzles only if they got high ratings?
Hi Evan,
Star ratings have never DIScouraged me from solving any puzzle. I have a couple of puzzles I solve regularly and don’t usually bother with the others – NYT and TNY are usually enough for me on any given day. But if I come here and see one of the others with an unusually high rating, I am sometimes ENcouraged to solve a puzzle that’s not in my usual “rotation.”
I am like Gary. A low rating isn’t going to DIScourage me from solving a puzzle I was going to do anyway, but a high rating might ENcourage me to do one I wouldn’t normally do. We all have limited time. I don’t do every puzzle that’s available to me, no matter how much I would like to!
I wonder if there’s a way of just having a thumbs up button but no thumbs down button? So a puzzle could get plaudits but no negatives. Just an idea.
I agree with every word “Me” said here.
I have thought that the star ratings are a quite interesting feature of this fine site.
I personally would never be discouraged from solving a puzzle that happened to garner poor ratings.
Sometimes I disagree quite markedly from the ratings, and it’s usually in the positive direction – thoroughly enjoying a puzzle that most folks have panned.
And it gives the solver a chance to quickly opine – I’ll give a high rating to a particularly clever or unusual puzzle, and conversely it is the only opportunity to express my displeasure at a puzzle filled with movie names and similar dreck.
TLDR: disappointed to see the stars vanish into the ether.
Well said, Art.
NYT: I tied my personal best for a Thursday today, despite not figuring out what the theme was until after I had finished. After the revealer clue indicated that the theme clues wouldn’t make sense, I just skipped over all the Across lines with circles in them, then filled them in without looking at the clues.
New personal best Thursday NYT for me as well, although I did figure out the theme which was helpful. Fun puzzle!
For what it’s worth I never could figure out what use the ratings here were – didn’t feel like they provided meaningful data or differentiation. kudos for adapting
WSJ: Tish Addams is of course Morticia Addams.
I’ve always liked the star ratings, despite the lack of scientific validity. But the system was too vulnerable to people who haven’t learned how to behave, who opted to skew the ratings by throwing 1-star reviews across the board. There was also once a puzzle that kept garnering additional 5-star votes from the same person, amassing far more votes than any other puzzle in that venue. Vandals, are you happy? Congrats, you wrecked it for people who liked it.
P.S. I’ve never once heard from a constructor feeling hurt by low star ratings for one of their crosswords.
I will miss the star ratings. I like having a tiny bit of input into how a certain group of people liked the puzzle (on average). It was nice to see if I tended to agree with the larger group or had a different opinion.
Sorry for your torment, Amy. I agree, RSP64. Well, I voted today three times in the comments on this subject, but I never voted more than once on a puzzle!
Excuse my senility, but who is Evan?
Where does the notion come from that “,,, all constructors… could care less what a small sample of commenters here choose for numerical ratings”?
The ratings are a quick and easy way to access other solvers’ opinions. It’s like the difference between True oe False answers to essay answers.
In my opinion, keep the ratings and keep in mind that that this a game. Lighten up.
The “tender egos” of constructors has been addressed quite often on this blog and, therefore, I believe most posters take that into consideration. Amy sure has done a lot to keep the discourse civil by deleting nasty posts.
I find it hard to believe that there enough trolls attacking this site to swing the ratings one way or the other.
You may find it hard to believe and yet it is true. Amy and Evad keep on eye on this and it definitely happens. Some puzzles only get two or three ratings so if one of those is a troll, it matters.
Oh, and Evan is Evan Birnholz, constructor of the WaPo Sunday puzzles.
I wrote and posted this much earlier, today. It must have gotten waylanded in the cyber world.
Fireball – There is a revealer at 21d: Indication of untrustworthiness…,or, phonetically, a feature of the eight rows in this grid with two answers – SHIFTY EYES
Four stars from me
I found the star ratings quite useful. They never discouraged me from doing a puzzle, and occasionally would cause me to do extra ones if those puzzles were highly rated.
Seem like an easy fix would be requiring people to log in before rating, but maybe that is not worth the effort.
Anyone know other sites where people can rate the puzzles?
-Charlie
Glad the ratings are gone. This happens with everything now. There is someone on a Reddit sub I use that comes in and downvotes every single post right after they are posted, probably using a bot. Guessing that happens on a lot of subreddits.
Goodreads has the same issue as does Boardgamegeek. Star ratings used to be good, now it’s just losers trolling in either direction.
As someone else said, why would I think a crossword is good because 10 people gave it five stars? I have no context on who these people are and why they gave that rating. General public ratings are worthless to me.
I will not miss the stars. The ratings have gotten lower it seems to me over the past few years. I did not know vandals/ jerks contributed to that, although I should have guessed as much. I thought it was just a general trend toward self-righteous crankiness which has happened in the commentariat over at Rex Parker as well. I will continue to read the comments and analyses as always. Thx.