Batman portrayer of TV film / SAT 10-12-19 / Request softener / NyQuil alternative / Bongo president of Gabon for 42 years

Constructor: Andrew J. Ries

Relative difficulty: Easy (6:19 on a weirdly oversized grid (15x16))

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ILENE Chaiken (6D: "The L Word" creator Chaiken) —

Ilene Chaiken (born June 30, 1957) is an American television producer, director, writer, and founder of Little Chicken Productions. Chaiken is best known as being the co-creator, writer and executive producer of the television series The L Word and is currently an executive producer on the hit television series Empire. (wikipedia)

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Bizarre solving experience. Ridiculously easy from the NW thru the center and (eventually) down into the SE (with ELLEN instead of ELLIE being my only hiccup on that entire cross-grid journey) (37D: Woman's name that sounds like two letters of the alphabet). But then I tried to go into the N/NE part of the grid and ... well, it was mainly the N that was the issue, and I forgot ILENE's name and had no idea what kind of -ODUCER was the [One who runs the show]—I thought INTRODUCER, at one point; also, I thought the "show runner" ran the show. ANYhoo, add in the uselessly clued WIDTHS (5A: Halves of some measurements), and that section was a minor timesuck. Things were somewhat worse in the SW, where [Sound around a cradle] made no sense to me (it's an awful, awful stretch to say the DIAL TONE happens "around a (telephone) cradle"; it has nothing to do with the cradle, and cradles don't even exist any more, what the hell). Further, ADVILPM, yikes (40D: NyQuil alternative). I think I tried to make this UNISOM at one point, but it came out UNIISOM (?). I forgot the Big Ten even had "east" and "west" divisions, so I kept reading the clue as having to do with the Big East ... instead of the Big Ten, which I'm very familiar with. I got my Ph.D. from a big Big Ten school. Ugh. DATE NUT, whatever (42D: Kind of bread with chopped fruit). Had to hack at that (spent a good 5-10 seconds trying to think of the answer I wanted, only to have that answer be FRUITCAKE :( Lastly, I had ___ FILTER and while I initially went with LENS, failure to get any of those letters (except the "S") to work made me reconsider. I honest-to-god had SANS FILTER in there at one point (59A: Screen for a shooter). Still, even with all that nonsense, and with an oversized grid, I still came in under average.


Loved the clue on COMMAS (28A: Characters in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"). I had CAMEOS at first! I did not get the clue on NO PRESSURE when I first solved it (33A: Request softener). I was reading it as a verb phrase—the equivalent of "Ask for Downy" (i.e. request a (fabric) softener). But it's a phrase that softens a request—makes it less urgent. Cool. Forgot Brandon TEENA's name, so I had to steer around that, but as I said, not much trouble getting coast to coast through the middle of this grid. No idea who the Bongo guy is, but OMAR is a name, and it worked, and sometimes that's good enough (67A: ___ Bongo, president of Gabon for 42 years). Nothing in this grid is exactly eye-popping (except SERENA SLAM! 34D: Tennis feat named for the athlete who achieved it in 2003 and 2015), but it's heavy with solid phrases and very low on dreck. I'll take it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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