Command in Macbeth / THU 7-13-17 / Product whose jingle uses Dragnet theme

Constructor: Lewis E. Rothlein

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: X MARKS THE SPOT (15D: Treasure hunt phrase ... or a hint to seven Across answers)— seven squares that have SPOT in the Across direction, X in the Down

Theme answers:

• IN A SPOT
• GUEST SPOT
• SPOT OF TEA
• DESPOTISM
• "OUT, DAMNED SPOT"
• SPOTIFY
• SPOT ON 

Word of the Day: MAT (2D: Hair clump) —

Interesting concept, UNEVEN execution. It was weirdly easy to tiptoe through the grid without getting any theme stuff. AUEL ALEPH IPAD SHWA (...) AWASH, stall. Reboot with SUTRA RIFF ATTY TRAILMIX and then (drum roll) I hit -IFY and figured it all out. Thus, when I came to the "revealer," it didn't really "reveal" much. It was "redundant.""Unnecessary." I am surprised this theme hasn't been done before. The revealer has certainly been a theme answer before (a lot) but never quite in this way (that I can see, or remember). There are some good moments here ("OUT, DAMNED X!") but there's an awful lot of gunk. AGE ONE is just bad, and the repeated ONE (see ONE CUP) makes it worse. UNTUNE is pretty yuck, and yuckier for being in same corner with another longish UN-prefixed word (UNEVEN). You've also got the dreaded full-phrase ETALII and the awful-when-spelled-out ITEN. The density of junk is what's bad here—and there's not even a "X" in that section to deal with. ON A TEAM? Can you just put any prepositional phrase in a puzzle? IN A PUZZLE? There's just too much wince-y stuff here.


Once you crack the theme, there's not much to trouble you. I honestly had no idea that MAT was spelled with just one "T"—I've never had occasion to spell it and never gave it a thought. For a nanosecond, I thought there might be a "TT" rebus for some reason. For more than a nanosecond, I thought Japan might be a FRENEMY (43D: Japan, to the U.S. => EXENEMY). When I get an answer like TYE so easily, I feel like I'm cheating #crosswordese. I hadn't really thought out "Tum, t-tum-tum-TUMS!" but hey, yeah, that is the "Dragnet" theme (62A: Product whose jingle uses the "Dragnet" theme) ("Dragnet" ... what do you mean, 'What's 'Dragnet'? ... it was a show ... on television ... television ... tel-e-vis-ion! ... it was this box oh nevermind."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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