I’m usually not a fan of this theme schtick, but I will give it a pass for two reasons. The first is that I felt it was overdone a while back, but enough time has elapsed since this type of theme came up. This is the first time this particular twist on a theme has run in The New York Times, so let’s get to looking. Tricky Clues8A: My eyes stopped reading after “Maze runner,” in the clue “Maze runner in an experiment,” so I confidently plunked in THESEUS, but that obviously wasn’t right. And I couldn’t remember the name of the lead in the “Maze Runner” series of books and films, which turned out to be a good thing, because the answer was LAB RAT.

Source: New York Times January 06, 2019 22:52 UTC