PUZZLIN'

David Levinson Wilk, of Brooklyn, works for television game shows. For the past year he was the head writer of ABC's "$100,000 Pyramid" and Bravo's "Cash Cab." For nine years he was a staff writer for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." He creates original puzzles for the San Diego Reader and other weekly newspapers across the country.

David sold his first crossword to The Times in 1996, when he was a sophomore in college, and he has been making puzzles ever since.

I was very happy to get 76-Across into the grid. My father, who was an avid Times crossword solver, joined 76-Across as a young lawyer in 1972 and he told me many stories about helping defend the Attica Brothers.

Here we are, nearly fifty years later, and efforts to reform this country's systems of incarceration continue. Justice is a constant struggle, but, much like solving a Sunday New York Times crossword, it can be achieved.

In all the times I've tried to explain to my daughter why FOMO drives us to do funny things, I've never noticed how funny it is to parse it FEAR OF MISSIN' GOUT. That's a winner! QUALIFYIN' GROUND isn't that amusing in its own right, but the clue did such a great job of making me smile. The visual of a sea captain saying "Here's the thing about dry land …" is so entertaining.

The other transformations didn't do much for me, as I've seen ROOM → GROOM, LOVE → GLOVE, RAIN → GRAIN many times in crosswords, but all in all, the theme works. It reminded me of a more innovative one from a few years back, playing on a similar conceit.

For a straight-over-the-plate puzzle, bonuses in the fill can be so important. I loved NERD ALERT!, ZEBRAFISH, LEGAL AID, PHONE SEX, even JIGGLES and OUCHIES. That can all help keep a solver's attention.

Smoothness is important, too, though. What do these have in common: SNERT, ENDE, MEADE, EPEES, ENTO, NEY, ENNUIS, YSER? Not only are they common crosswordese, but they heavily feature the free "Wheel of Fortune" letters, RSTLN E. That's not a terrible thing, since some of these can give longtime solvers toeholds into the puzzle, but cutting the quantity of crossword glue in half or more would have been better.

I generally strongly disagree with the philosophy of going under 140 words. Most of the time, a 140-word puzzle can be both more sparkly and smoother than a 136-word one.

I did enjoy quite a few clever clues. MATINEE as [Something never seen at night] is brilliant. George SOROS as "The Palindrome" makes me long to get a cool nickname. And SIRENS as [Rock singers?] is so clever.

I like Sunday puzzles to be more ground-breaking than a g-round breaker, but there's a place for these among certain solving segments — especially those who aren't as crossword-obsessed as me.