LAT tk (Gareth) 
[2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 16:16 (Eric) [2.70 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) 
[2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 8:14 (Jim P) 
[3.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [3.60 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
WaPo 5:17 (Matt G) [3.57 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Alex Eaton-Salners’ New York Times Crossword “Off Broadway Musicals” — Eric’s Review
Alex Eaton-Salners’ New York Times Crossword “Off-Broadway Musicals” — 12/28/25 (Click to Embiggen)
The titles of 10 familiar Broadway shows become punny clues for theme answers, which are all over the map:
- 23A [Rock of Ages] ROSETTA STONE
- 25A [How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying] NEPOTISM
- 44A [A Class Act] FIELD TRIP
- 47A [A Strange Loop] MÖBIUS STRIP
- 67A [A Little Night Music] LULLABY
- 70A [A Chorus Line] REFRAIN
- 88A [The Producers] PROLETARIAT
- 91A [Into the Woods] OUTDOORSY This amused me more than the other theme answers; I like the spin on “into” from literal to figurative.
- 111A [The Wiz] EINSTEIN
- 113A [Mean Girls] AVERAGE JANES
This is a servicable if not particularly innovative theme. Even solvers who don’t care for Broadway musicals should be able to get the theme answers without too much trouble. I don’t recognize either A Class Act or A Strange Loop and actually got MÖBIUS STRIP off a few key letters without reading the clue. I did like the somewhat anti-elitist vibe in the way NEPOTISM and PROLETARIAT were clued.
Other stuff:
- 1A [Poet with a 1982 posthumous Pulitzer] Sylvia PLATH, for the 1981 publication The Collected Poems. I didn’t know about her Pulitzer and for some reason I can’t explain came up with PLATT as her surname. It probably didn’t matter much that I read “1982” as “1928.”
- 6A [S.L.R. insert since the early 2000s] SD CARD It’s a flash memory card developed by the SD Association, which was founded by the SD Corporation, Panasonic and Sony. It’s been so long since I’ve used our digital SLR that I couldn’t remember what that card is called.
- 19A [Host Tyler of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”] AISHA I had no idea here and between not getting PLATH right away and struggling to come up with this answer, spent too much time in the NW corner.
- 31A [Starting section] PART A I plunked down PART I and didn’t notice that 17D [Dodger’s comeuppance] IRS AUDIT didn’t work until I finished with an error that took a minute to find.
- 56A [Full legislative assembly] PLENUM I worked for the Texas Legislature for almost 30 years and this term never came up. There was often concern as to whether one house or the other had a quorum (the number of members required to conduct business), but no one usually cared if all the members were present.
- 105A [Dollop] GOB That’s a more satisfactory answer than my original DAB, which I corrected only once I saw that 69D [World capital near the Andean foothills] needed to be SANTIAGO.
- 4D [“One of These Nights” band] THE EAGLES I’m not a fan of that band, though I do kinda like a few of their songs. But even I know their name is just EAGLES.
- 16D [Cheep trills?] TWITTERS Cute. Too cute, actually.
- 37D [Short boxers, e.g] PUPS More cute clueing.
- 42D [Oldsmobile Cutlass model] CIERA I think that by now, more CIERAs have been seen in crossword puzzles than on the road. If I remember the Motor Trend review correctly, the car was so poorly designed that you could break off the fuel filler door by shutting the rear passenger door on the fuel filler door.
- 48D [Uses an alternate account to play against easier opponents, in gamer-speak] SMURFS That’s a slangy use of the Belgian cartoon characters that I hadn’t heard before.
- 85D [Shell filling stations] TACO BARS That clue didn’t fool me one bit.
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Countdown” — Matt’s Review
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Countdown” solution, 12/28/2025
Last puzzle of the year from Evan, it’s titled “Countdown,” and, yep, it’s New Year-themed.
We get to the theme pretty quickly in this one, with three of our eleven theme entries starting in the first row, marked by asterisks. The real insight, though, is seeing that three down entries are clued as [TICK]. A little bit of rebus-or-no rebus, and some work with crossings, and we see that the full theme entries fill their initial grid slot, turn downwards, and turn again to finish on a lower row. The parts of the entries that are running down contain TEN, NINE, EIGHT, and so on. An apt countdown for the end of December.
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- 1a [*Folk music party] HOOTENANNY, overlapping with 21a THE NANNY
- 8a [*Gold or silver quality] SHININESS, 28a EARLESS
- 12a [*Period when MTV and Nintendo Entertainment System consoles launched] THE EIGHTIES, 33a HAIRTIES
- 36a [*Later today during dinnertime] THIS EVENING, 62a IRONING
- 45a [*Throws overboard] DEEP SIXES, 57a EXES
- 58a [*What a poker player with “nickels” is holding] PAIR OF FIVES, 82a LES
- 76a [*19th-century leader of the Tabeguache band of the Northern Ute people] CHIEF OURAY, 96a RAY
- 86a [*Artist and textile designer who created carpets for Radio City Music Hall] RUTH REEVES, 113a ASK JEEVES
- 100a [*”Invictus” director”] EASTWOOD, 115a IM GOOD
- 104a [*Brit’s high-collared sweater] POLO NECK, 117a DECK
- 122a [Conclusion of a countdown that marks an annual “turn”] HAPPY NEW YEAR
I found the early theme clues easier than the later ones, but I (and I imagine most solvers) had the gist of the theme by the bottom half of the puzzle. I’m curious, but pleased, by the decision to not mark the down portion of the themers other than the repeated [Tick] clue. I think for those solvers who unravel the theme by noticing the repetition, it will be a great “aha” moment.
I wonder if there are workable options for the entries containing EIGHT, SIX, and FIVE, where the numbers aren’t very disguised. The grid is already heavily asymmetrical; it’s not as if these choices salvaged something there. But all of that is a pretty small nit to pick.
Other highlights:
I recall a few hiccups among crosswords around 2019 when the former MPAA became the MPA [Ratings org. Letters since 2019] // SHANE Steichen has apparently coached the Indianapolis Colts for multiple seasons now. Shows how much I pay attention to football. I suppose at 72 years old, the western film isn’t our best option, anymore // It doesn’t take moving to Hawai’i to know that lots of Hawaiian makes it into crosswords, but it sure ups my attention. Cluing OAHU to Kaneohe Bay is fun, for me at least – I live in Kane’ohe // [Electric ___ (feature of a Jacob’s ladder)] for ARC stumped me a bit – the Jacob’s Ladder I know is a very-not-electric toy. But it seems such a thing exists by that name!
Cheers!
Sam Brody’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Double-Booking”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar two-word phrases where the first words can also precede “room” and the second words can also precede “board” to make other phrases. The revealer is ROOM AND BOARD (122a, [College offering, or what follows each half of the starred clues’ answers]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Double-Booking” · Sam Brody · 12.28.25
- 22a. [*Lunch with three slices of bread] CLUB SANDWICH. Club room. Sandwich board.
- 39a. [*It’s said the moon is made of it] GREEN CHEESE. Green room. Cheese board.
- 44a. [*Aspect of the Force that Darth Vader uses] DARK SIDE. Darkroom. Sideboard.
- 68a. [*Window-closing button] ESCAPE KEY. Escape room. Keyboard.
- 71a. [*What supports lying people?] BED SPRING. Bedroom. Springboard.
- 99a. [*Short cnn.com video, e.g.] NEWS CLIP. Newsroom. Clipboard.
- 102a. [*Bit of monthly mail] UTILITY BILL. Utility room. Billboard.
Fantastic theme with some really surprising, wonderful finds. My only nit is that “club room” doesn’t seem as common a phrase as the rest, but maybe that’s my own ignorance. The rest are all rock solid and were fun to uncover.
Top fill includes DIET PEPSI, SCREW-UPS, GO BLANK, and “I GET IT.” Did not know BAIDU [Chinese search engine company], which I had to Google afterward (haha). It’s had a few previous appearances in both the NYT and the LAT.
Clues were straightforward and I’m visiting with family, so I will cut this short. But this was a good puzzle with an enjoyable theme. Four stars.
Universal Sundays:
https://herbach.dnsalias.com/wsj/uc251228.puz
https://herbach.dnsalias.com/wsj/ucs251228.puz
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Wasn’t IRSAUDIT a crossword answer this week too?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Enjoyed today’s clever NYT puzzle
I had much the same experience as Eric with the NYT. The jokes just weren’t connecting, and I didn’t know at least a couple of shows (and had Part 1 before Part A). So it just wasn’t fun. I can’t tell you how long I had JANES before I was able to add something to precede it.
Other glitches for me in solving included not remembering a plot for “Anything Goes,” while seeing what fit and not being able to explain it. I thought first of the song as well rather than the musical that contains it. I didn’t do too well with other names either, like AISHA, although it looked early on like it must fit. Up there in the NW, I came up with PLATH immediately, before I had anything else at all, thinking of what poet of that word length Will Shortz might like, but didn’t have the courage to enter it for some time.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Not particularly impressed nor am I annoyed. The textbook definition of a “mid” puzzle.
Just to respond to this a little: “The grid is already heavily asymmetrical; it’s not as if these choices salvaged something there.” What I’d say I “salvaged” is that the starts of each entry were legit crossword answers before the turns happened (well, DEEPS isn’t my favorite answer, but it apparently has appeared in poetry and has been clued as such in puzzles before). If there were other options where you could begin with a real three-letter or longer word and then hide the FIVE and SIX and EIGHT in the middle in a non-numerical way, I missed them.
Anyhow, happy 2026 and thanks for the year of reviews!
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 5 stars
Thanks for the delightful puzzle, Evan. Hm. 4.5 or 5… I really loved the stepped theme answers, but I didn’t love all the obscure (to me) proper names. OTOH the crossed words gave me the whole puzzle with no lookups. Let’s celebrate New Year’s with a 5.
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 5 stars
Fantastic and really fun puzzle, Evan. Thank you and Happy New Year!
I’m among those who loved the Washington Post puzzle. I’d never tried one before and may not have a week this leisurely with which to indulge again, but I was impressed, doubly so on looking back. The numbers appear in order and, as Evan says, the larger entries are all words, not at all forced landing places.
My nit would be too many cross-reference clues, which would be a flaw in any case, but maybe more so since the asterisk/”tick” steps are already a kind of required cross-referencing.
Irrelevant anecdote, but once I had the W in the last long entry, I entered mistakenly Pacific OAK since I recognized it as close to the name of a college in Pasadena. (I used to work in college publishing so recognize lots to do with colleges and universities, and also a late author of mine taught there.) Then, ignoring that I was a letter short of the right word length, I thought the answer might be “happy new word,” which I imagined as the puzzle’s play on itself for what the stepped answers do. That slowed me up to no end on the finish. Oops.
NYT puz was exceedingly mid, as the youngsters say, or so I am led to believe from crosswords. The clue for LAVS is confused at best. In British English, lav is short for lavatory, ie toilet, and is not at all equivalent to ‘bath.’ I know American English uses bathroom/restroom for the place where you do your business, but bath alone isn’t equivalent.
It took me a while to grasp the theme in the WaPo puzzle, especially because the NW corner was tough — hard to guess PLATH, among other five-letter poets, and no idea about AISHA. I also thought it was a weakness that some of the numbers in the theme answers retained their meaning while others were cleverly embedded, but I realize it would have been tough to avoid that.
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 4 stars
Evan’s WaPo: loved it. Fun, not too difficult. Maybe because I spotted the new year’s theme early (or I was primed to do so by the proximity of the holiday), the latter half of the puzzle difficulty was more of a treat than a burden. Really fun. Great year of puzzles, Evan. Thank you.
NYT: I did not love this puzzle. I try to stray from idle complaints on here; trying to keep my criticism constructive… ok: first, I’m pretty sure this puzzle was either written with 2016 in mind or the editorial crew resurrected this one from an earlier archive. Ive done the “NYT 500 Sunday Puzzles” book, which spans 2010-2020, and this puzzles clues, answers, and thematic freshness are all mid-2010s. AISHA (Tyler) is perhaps the only modern reference I caught in the whole puzzle. I get “why” the NYT runs some of the less modern puzzles, but it does seem to drag when there are so many fresher, livelier entries of late. Can’t please everyone, so instead of giving this one a lukewarm review at best, I’ll keep it positive and give Evan his due kudos this week…
I also caught a very dated vibe from NYT. AISHA Tyler started hosting Whose Line is it Anyway? in 2013 so even that fits the description.
More than once I’ve wondered if the Times has a stash of emergency grids that they can run if a puzzle suddenly can’t be used at the last minute. This seems like one of those, if they exist.
A Strange Loop premiered off-Broadway in 2019 and on Broadway in 2022, so the puzzle can’t be that old. But I agree it doesn’t feel very current. Mean Girls is from 2018, but all the other musicals are at least 20 years old (and way more than 20 years in most cases).
WaPo: 28a [Like monk seals] EARLESS. This is a bit of a misnomer. Pinnipeds are taxonomically divided into ‘eared’ and ‘earless’ varieties, but they all have organs for hearing. What those distinctions refer to are external ears, or pinnae.
WaPo: Enough comments are here that I’ll make a point of doing this one… (thnx, folks! That is a big part of the reason to come here…) ;-)
NYT: Agree with Eric’s summary/review, throughout — most particularly on the clues for PROLETARIAT and NEPOTISM. (Perhaps they seem 2025-appropriate?)
My 16-year old gave me SMURFS (with zero hesitation), so yes: that’s a thing…
I paused on AVERAGE JANES, like – wait, what? Oh. (ok. sure. fine…)
Eric’s comment on (THE) EAGLES reminded me of the scene in The Big Lebowski where The Dude gets thrown out of a cab. (*** language warning *** for the f-word…) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JlmvtAHhnc
https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/46672/why-did-the-dude-hate-the-eagles-so-much
Yeah, but that’s a meaning of “ear.” People refer to Van Gogh missing an ear, frinstance.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
My partner and I are huge gamers, but SMURFS only rang a very distant bell for me. I asked him after I finished and he’d never heard the term before, so I’m a little surprised it was clued that way, especially crossing EREBUS and a theme answer.
LAT: On the minus side, having both HANA clued as flower in Japanese and IKEBANA seems like a pretty glaring duplication. On the plus side, “Gray matter?” was a clue that I didn’t fully appreciate the cleverness of until coming to that “aha” moment later on (though it probably didn’t help that I’d tunnel-visioned on “gray” meaning “alien”).
Yeah, anybody who actually knows HANA is flower in Japanese (like me) would easily spot that dupe and groaned accordingly.
I wonder if dupes can also happen in French, Spanish or Latin. Hopefully nobody has even put both “carne asada” and “asado” in the same grid…
NYT: While the band may be “Eagles,” I will always think of The Dude complaining about having to listen to THE EAGLES whenever I think of them…
Katie –
The Birnholz puzzles are in a class by themselves. Watch the title and any Meta he has announced. They are not all alike, and some are more mind-blowingly clever than others, but they’re all good. If you have access to the Post, do also read his column discussing each puzzle. I gave up the Post after Bezos’s third strike, alas. My personal favorite of Evan’s puzzles was a Christmas puzzle where crossed words shared a rebus entry, each of which was a “present.” The one I remember was “vest”, which finally gave it away… This HAS TO BE “investment” but there are only seven spaces. Oh wait…
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 4.5 stars
This was a very good puzzle that had a wide variety of answers that normally don’t appear in a crossword. Give it a try!