Constructor: Grant Thackray
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging or Easy depending on if you looked at the revealer early or late (I looked late)
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THEME: "A WRINKLE IN TIME" (59A: Classic young adult novel ... or hint to the path taken by four letters to the answers in the starred clues) — in order to make sense of the themers, you have to find the missing "IM," which is sitting directly above the "TE," so it's like the answer has sort of buckled, causing a "wrinkle" in the letter string "TIME":
Theme answers:
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging or Easy depending on if you looked at the revealer early or late (I looked late)
Theme answers:
- SENT(IM)ENTAL VALUE (16A: *An old wedding dress might have this)
- "WHAT (I M)EANT WAS ..." (29A: *"Er ... um ...")
- MORT(IM)ER MOUSE (45A: *Mickey's rival for Minnie's affection)
The L Word: Generation Q is an American drama television series produced by Showtimethat premiered on December 8, 2019. It is a sequel series to The L Word, which aired on Showtime from 2004 to 2009. A first-look screening took place on December 9, 2019, hosted by House of Pride, to coincide with the US release. In January 2020, Showtime renewed the series for a second season. // Generation Q is set over ten years after The L Word, in the new setting of Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Several actors from the original series returned to reprise their roles alongside a new ensemble of diverse characters. The show centers on a group of diverse LGBTQ+characters experiencing love, heartbreak, sex, setbacks, personal growth and success in Los Angeles.(wikipedia)
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RThe concept is slightly clever but the actual experience of solving this puzzle was not great, largely because, once again, my grid is full of gibberish. It's a little better than other gibberish puzzles I've done in the past, in that at least I can actually *see* the missing "IM" at the end, once the revealer tells me what's going on, but still, the themers were all messed up in ways that made everything just a slog. Also, who the hell is MORT(IM)ER MOUSE? I cannot picture him at all. What a bizarre, obscure themer. But getting the letters in "MORTER" was actually much easier than getting the other two themers. I guess I resent the idea that if I'd done my puzzle backward, i.e. read the ending (the revealer) first, this puzzle would've been, what, 3 to 4 times easier. I'm making that up, but A WRINKLE IN TIME was practically a gimme, even with its generic [Classic young adult novel] clue, and then I could've focused on the letter string "TIME," and deciphering the themers would've been a snap. But instead I hacked to the end and while the revealer definitely gave me the "aha" moment you typically look for, the experience of working my way down there was so singularly unpleasant that it didn't matter. Payoff needed to be Much bigger to make up for the slog. And it wasn't just the theme experience that was annoying: the fill is really rough in lots of places, and that NE corner was really hard in a way that made it a huge, huge outlier.
Without knowing the themer gimmick, I didn't have SENT(IM)ENTAL VALUE, so in the NE I had PDA and DOILIES ... and I figured DOILIES would open things right up, buuuut ... nope. Had LIE for AIL (11D: Languish). Had LEK for LEU (Romanian currency, truly the lowest form of crosswordese), and I wasn't sure if 13D: -speak was -ESE or -ISH. So many Hindu gods that I wasn't at all confident there (9D: Hindu god of destruction = SIVA) (having the "V" would've helped) yet, and HOLESAWS???? (8D: Ring-shaped cutters attached to drills). LOL, forget it. Never seen the term in my life. I eventually had the SAWS part but, yeah, "ring-shaped" wasn't helping me at all. Clue on PHSCALE was vague (7A: Bases make up a part of it), so until I couldn't figure out the VALUE part of SENT(IM)ENTAL VALUE, that corner was a horror show. By contrast, its symmetrical equivalent went down in about 10 seconds. Harumph. And the fill in this thing, yuck. Romanian currency is just one of the terrible ICINGS on this dry cake. ESE ASEAT LAMES WAL LOC ESME REA OEDS IES TSETSE and whatever a CIERA is (!?!?) (2D: Popular Oldsmobile model of the 1980s-'90s) (I had ALERO, and then MIATA, which isn't even an Olds, but I was desperate). And while I'm up in that NW corner, what is with the *two* cross-referenced answers with all *four* parts all jumbled up together in this tiny little space (INNER crossing ERE which is followed by NOWwhich is followed byEAR). That clusterf*** was so choppy and awful, I was sure it was part of the theme until I saw the "*" on the first themer clue (and even after ... I wasn't sure). Please value user experience more, he shouted at the uncaring sky. Have a nice day.