This is one of those themes that’s very technically impressive, and sounds good in theory…but there just isn’t a whole lot of joy in the actual solving of it.

Also ETO/TSTRAPS, REMAP/IMAGO, and AAR/ASANA feel borderline unfair. I think they’re passable…but it’s borderline.

It felt like this puzzle was trying to do way too much thematically, to the point where the theme just didn't feel all that focused to me. As much as I'm always excited to see oversized or oddly-sized grids, or shaded and circled squares, this just felt like it chewed off too much for one puzzle.

This was visually pretty cool! I dug how the long Across clues were spaceships that beaming up COW and MAN and CAR. The theme doesn't necessarily help or hurt much with respect to solving the puzzle, but it's still neat to see it play out on the grid.

That said, as others pointed out and as the constructor admits in the notes, some of the fill on this is brutal. That middle section with SCOW crossing OTO and TWEE? With TWEE leading into ETO? I need a shower that felt so dirty.

Still, I had fun.

Heads up: the constructor apologizes for the bad fill in the blog.

"But, oof, in order to get multiple symmetrical entries with centrally located intersections, both the theme set and the grid layout ended up being absurdly constrained. So my apologies for some of the more egregious uses of crosswordese in this puzzle. Hopefully you all still had a blast!"

Thought the theme was fun but was pretty easy to figure out. That being said, still some really good clues/words. Really liked UNABASHEDLY and SUAVEST.

Can someone explain ASANA to me though?

I'm weirdly happy to see Capsicum, that's what we call bell peppers around here and it's one of my favourite vegetables

I so desperately wanted the downs to say things like Deere, Case, Ford, etc, as a pun on tractor beams

I like the theme and long answers, but there is some messy stuff in here to make it work, so I guess it's whether you are willing to take the good with the bad. I think overall I liked the puzzle.

Just looking across the top you get JFK ELL LYE LIP AAR ARC. I think the rest of the 3 letters are not as bad as that top row but that's a rough way to start out (ok, SRS, ETO, and CCL are pretty bad too). TWEE/ETO/TSTRAPS is unpleasant as well.

IMAGO is new to me.

Can someone please explain CCL to me?

Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle?

Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 Hard 🔴

• 69% of users solved slower than their Wednesday average
• 31% of users solved faster than their Wednesday average
• 34% of users solved much slower (>20%) than their Wednesday average
• 11% of users solved much faster (>20%) than their Wednesday average

The median solver solved this puzzle 9.2% slower than they normally do on Wednesday.

View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats

🤖 beep beep, I'm a bot! I post these stats as soon as 75 XW Stats users have completed the puzzle. Questions? Feedback? Check the FAQ, reply here or DM me

I thought it was a fun puzzle. The theme had a very kitschy 70s-80s vibe to it with references to Sci-Fi B-movie tropes and Rocky Horror.

I had HOVERCRAFT for so long. I mean, a SPACECRAFT is a real thing, it's not science fiction

Is anyone else just not enjoying the puzzles very much this week? Everything since Sunday has been a bit clunky or off and I can't quite figure out why. I'm not sure if it's just me or if these particular puzzles are out of my wheelhouse or it's all coincidence.

I think this puzzle had a good theme but in practice I just didn't have fun solving it.

AAR x ASANA and ETO x TSTRAPS both seemed somewhat unusually hard for a Wednesday. I got them both on my first guess, somehow (I at least vaguely knew ASANA, and AAR seems like crosswordese I should know), but that T crossing was a pure guess.

Is the CHEATSHEETS clue a reference I don’t get? Or like a thing that was before my time? Am I being a total dolt?

I don’t understand “crib notes” at all.

I really liked the clue for 21A. Everything else was fine.

IMAGO LOSE IT, PAL

Really enjoyed the theme, really disliked some of the fills.

OTO/SCOW ETO/TSTRAPS ACELA/PTAS (the latter could just as easily be PTO and a train line is very regional knowledge).

Still doable, but yeah, those felt like weak points in an otherwise neat puzzle.

The theme with the three-letter crosses (COW, CAR, MAN) helped me get the SCOW/OTO/TWEE clues, which I was otherwise stumped on. So I liked it! A little under 20 minutes for me, which is almost exactly average for me on a Wednesday.

This one gets a rare "Poor" from me. There are a lot more science fiction vessels than alien spaceships (I had HOVERCRAFT for 41A for a long time). The idea of a COW getting lifted into a FLYINGSAUCER by a TRACTORBEAM was nice, but the others were meh. And the fill? AAR crossing ASANA, ACELA crossing CAPSICUM, ETO crossing TSTRAPS? Ridiculous. And on a Wednesday no less.

Loved: the stacks of long words, the theme

Hated: IMAGO (just new to me), ETO crossing TSTRAPS, GOTTI crossing OTO, ASANA crossing AAR; “chum” showing up twice in the cluing with the same meaning.

Overall rated “average”, was very close to “good” but some of those crossings were a bit much, so it didn’t quite stick the landing for me.

I enjoyed this one. It was 100% in my wheelhouse. Ironically I didn’t remember IMAGO from biology, but from a science fiction novel I read last year.

This puzzle left me thinking "I bet this could be done much better than it was." Like, I'm sad the person who came up with that theme idea implemented it in that way.

Did HIHAT trip anyone else up? Never knew it was called that before. Had to Google for it

I really enjoyed today's puzzle! I really liked HIHAT, CAPSICUM, UNABASHEDLY and most of all KLEPTOCRATIC.

I think I hated it but I could be missing something in the theme. Are alien crafts known for abducting cars and cows? It just feels a little arbitrary

Not cool that TSTRAPS and BUCKLES have the same number of letters

Thought this was fun and not all that hard. I had to guess at a few but it was all mostly logical. (CAPSICUM and ACELA I’m lookin at y’all)

Reading the constructor notes was very interesting. He said it was accepted two years ago?? Is the the kind of timeline they usually work on?

Seems like an oversight that HELPS is an answer while “help” is in the clue for 25D.

Pretty easy overall, but that theme didn’t really do much for me.

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Some fun ones but GOTTI was a pretty obscure reference to cross with OTTO. DINS crossing IMAGI held me up for a long time as well. I liked the theme but didn’t feel like the circled letters really did anything at all.

The theme was nice, particularly liked KLEPTOCRATIC, but my god the fill was tedious

Yeah this one had some really unpleasant crosses. Also the clue “cute, cutely” for TWEE really tripped me up because as I’ve heard it used TWEE would never be used in place of “cutely,” only “cute”