Horror film director Aster / WED 4-8-20 / Real English county on which Thomas Hardy based fictional Wessex / Eschewers of military service / Clicked the double vertical bar on YouTube video / Fans that jeer home team informally

Constructor: Sam Buchbinder

Relative difficulty: Medium (untimed)

THEME: BOWLING ALLEY (16D: Where you might roll the starts of 17-, 31-, 43- and 56-Across)— first words are all bowling terms

Theme answers:

• STRIKE FORCES (17A: Quick attack groups)
• SPLIT SCREEN (31A: Like many TV news interviews)
• SPARE CHANGE (43A: Producer of jingle-jangle in the pocket)
• TURKEY BASTER (56A: Aid for a Thanksgiving chef)

Word of the Day: ARI Aster (47A: Horror director Aster) —

Ari Aster (born July 15, 1986) is an American filmmaker and screenwriter. He wrote the short film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), then wrote and directed the horror films Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019). (wikipedia)

This old thing? Are we doing bowling terms again? Whyyyyyyy though? Maybe driving the revealer, BOWLING ALLEY, through all of the themers is supposed to add novelty to the concept, and ... I guess from an architectural standpoint, it's a little impressive, but from a solving standpoint, this theme is still very, very tired. SPLIT SCREEN on its own is a nice answer. If this were a themeless puzzle, I'd be singling it out for praise. But it's a themed puzzle, and this one is not good. Or, maybe it was adequate in the '90s, but it's definitely past its expiration date now. Also, I'm no bowler, but a SPLIT is more of a situation. You "pick up" a split, you don't "roll" one. A strike and spare are effects of the roll itself, whereas a "split" is just ... sitting there in front of you, even before you "roll," and then you, the bowler, have to pick it up (by, ironically, knocking pins down). Here, I'll let wikipedia help:

A split is a situation in ten pin bowling in which the first ball of a frame knocks down the headpin ("number 1 bowling pin") but leaves standing two or more non-adjacent groups of one or more pins. (wikipedia)

See. A "split" is a "situation"; it precedes your "roll." It is not, itself, something you roll. It is something, you "pick up." You roll a spare, you roll a strike, but you pick up a split. A "turkey" is three strikes in a row, which I knew, but which it took me two googles to confirm, because the first google led me here:

Turkey bowling is a sport which is based on ordinary bowling: a frozen turkey serves as a bowling ball and 10 plastic bottles of soft drinks or water are the bowling pins. The turkey is bowled down a smooth surface, for example, ice or a soap covered sheet of painters plastic (using a bar of soap). It is commonly associated with Thanksgiving. (wikipedia)

Toughest part of the puzzle for me was the NE, where I had Tom CRUISE over a DRUMKIT instead of Tom CLANCY (7A: Tom who created Jack Ryan) over a DRUMPAD (14A: Something to practice percussion on). Tom Cruise played Jack *Reacher*. John Krasinski played Jack Ryan. Glad I got that sorted, if only for today. BOOBIRDS is probably the best thing in this grid. It's certainly the thing that made me happiest (I'm a sucker for good sports slang) (16A: Fans that jeer the home team, informally). Its symmetrical counterpart, however—PULLAUEY—is probably the worst thing in this grid. First because it continues to inflict the horrible, please-don't-try-to-spell-it UEY on the world—stop normalizing UEY!—and because you flip a uey. You pull a boner. Pull a boner, pull a stunt, pull a fast one, flip a uey. Actually FLIPAU works just fine. Put that in your grid and smoke it.

Five things:

• 1D: Oodles (GOBS)— the lowest form of clue. Never cute or hard or interesting, but always confusing, because always a crap shoot: LOTS, TONS, A LOT, A TON ... apparently GOBS ... 
• 2D: Dead space? (OBIT)— I know this is not the first clue to clown around with death, giving OBIT a cutesy "?" clue, but somehow right Now I'm not really feeling the whimsy
• 3D: Howl : wolf :: bell : ___ (DEER) — wow, what? DEER howl now? I've seen a million of them, never seen one ... bell, is it? I wrote in PEAL here, completely misunderstanding and misreading the analogy
• 35A: Emmy nomination number for which Susan Lucci finally won for playing Erica Kane on "All My Children" (NINETEEN) — Wow. Timely. This was news back when soap operas still existed and people might be expected to know who acted in them; specifically, this was news in 1999. It is a bizarre and joyless and aggressively bygone way to clue NINETEEN, a wonderful prime number that deserves better.
• 65A: Cry at a revival ("I'M SAVED!")— do people actually cry this? Do revivals still exist?  Whoa, sorry. Youtube is shouting at me for my stupid questions:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]