New York Times, Thursday, March 26, 2020

ROMAN GOD makes its NYT crossword debut today. Interestingly, it almost debuted back in 2018 in this puzzle. There, my original submission had the dual revealer of ROMAN GOD and PLANET. Continuing to think about that connection probably contributed to arriving at today's theme (my jumping-off point was the Mercury/Mars pairing).

Having a central 11-letter theme entry (INNER PLANET) forces either vertical triple stacks of 7+-letter words in two corners or a bunch of 3-letter words (if those longer entries are broken up). I chose the former. Another decision point was how to orient the two Utah blocks breaking up the sides. I chose the configuration needing words matching ????G??T and I??S???? rather than ??B????I and T????A??. ??B????I is very limiting, which means fewer options for smooth and interesting fill.

Of course, combining those decisions with the 8-letter themers in rows 3 and 13 creates large swaths of open space in the NE and SW corners. With only a couple of 3-letter words interspersed between the 6s, 7s, and 8s, solvers may have a hard time getting a foothold there.

That layout, plus the low word count (72) and perhaps some hard vocabulary, is likely what bumped this puzzle to Thursday instead of Wednesday, where it was initially slotted. Hopefully, solvers aren't disappointed that the trickiness factor is less than a typical Thursday offering!

Convo from inside the top-secret Gridmasters and Gargoyles Group (D&D : ridiculous dorks :: G&G : geek elite):

Alex: Surprised to see this one running on Thursday. It was slated for Wednesday, but I guess the puzzle proved too difficult for the test solvers in that slot. Maybe the theme would have been better served by a less audacious grid. I suspect there will be grumbling that the theme isn't tricky enough for a Thursday puzzle.

Jim: Hey, you stole my line! This was a fine Wednesday puzzle.

Jeff: Bah, what smart thing am I supposed to say now? Hmm … the only thing that will cure me is Mercury?

Jim: Bring me the paddle.

Alex hit two nails right on their heads. #1, wham! It's a fine theme—especially after you notice that it's not just two random planets for each themer, but always MERCURY plus another one (it totally didn't take me a solar year to figure this out, no sirree!). It's an extremely straightforward one, though, not worthy of the Thursday slot.

#2, bam! A simpler grid would have befitted this simpler theme. I love the drive to do something more, but a 72-word grid with five themers almost always comes with compromise. Amazing avoidance of short glue, but today, it came in the form of oddballs:

• ASTARTE isn't of the same level as Isis or Osiris, and to have her muddying things up under ROMAN GOD should be avoided.
• SIEGED … is passable. "The city is under siege!" is terror-inducing. "The invaders have sieged our castle!" is more "WTF kind of mead have you been drinking?" inducing.
• SOAKAGE. Let us not discuss thee, prithee well nay?

There are huge benefits of going down to 72 words—HOUDINI / OSMOSIS is almost worth it all by itself! The more I study it, the more I try to convince myself that maybe it was the right decision. LAWFUL TRUE GRIT. TOP GUN took my breath away. GO ALL IN, yeah?

Yeah, not with the compromises.

Overall, a fine theme that could have been made much sharper and more fun, if it had been fine-tuned for a Wednesday, where it belonged.