Fill In The Blanks

Nice idea! Thanks, DrTom.

Clever idea, DrT... I needed to back solve for the E and am still unsure. There's ETS and ENOLS - thinking ETS as in a Euro Touring Series RACE? Is that ITALO? or ALFA? or.........?

Whew! I went through a couple #2 pencils on that grid, but I finally got there! Thanks for the puzzle!

Very nice. I appreciate that the answer was not inferred! Thanks, Dr Tom.

Took me a while to find ________ LOTS, but it showed itself eventually.

Had to back solve for ____LOTS, but I eventually found it. Very clever meta, Tom! Thanks for the puzzle.

Full metanism to figure out and a nice AHA moment.

But very hard to complete as there are sooo many options. (Was WHOLE LOTS= TONS the way to get the first T?)

Bit of a misdirection with the opposites of EMPTY, SPACE, CLEAR, and OPEN being FULL, TOTAL, WHOLE and ... well there isn't really a forth and using them for FULL HOUSE and WHOLE LOTS (I think) but not the other two.

Very nice! Had to backsolve LOTS- I'm assuming it's WHOLE LOTS -> TOTAL?

Went back to school for a bit, but finally passed. Thanks, DrTom.

Got tripped up by trying SCRAP LOTS… which of course had no companion entry to finally looked again. By that time I had _ _ ST and thought of TEST. ET fell quickly (ALIEN RACE) —though ASSES RACE was a fun idea for a second. ( :

Fun one (disregard my wrong answer- iPad autocorrect). Once you understand the mechanics, the alternate answers are 100% clear unlike a few other puzzles people have talked about lately.

Nice mechanism and well done with the replacement words being the same length as the "empties." I had the last three letters and was looking for an N to make NEST with the answer being Empty Nest --i.e., something one might want to fill. Then I noticed that EMPTY was already taken. In the end, I had them just the way you intended.

Drew a total blank this morning. But was able to fill in the blanks tonight.

Enjoyed the mental workout, Tom.

And, FWIW, I’m voting 5D as my favorite clue.

Fun one! Good job coming up with 4 sets of phrases that worked - the replacement words even had the same number of letters. Well done!

Full House let me in -- the proximity in the grid probably helped. I too found Tot Lots, and also Cell Lots --- wondered if Acela has cell lots. Fun puzzle; Thanks DrTom!

Yay! I passed.

Count me as another who got stuck on the ___ LOTS (I thought it was "HOME LOTS"). In fact, there were so many options I thought for a while I needed to find two fitting words for each themer (e.g. home/whole LOTS, alien/robot RACE, throw/sends AWAY, full/cell HOUSE) and combine them somehow. But then I finally connected FULL HOUSE to 9A and got it pretty fast after that.

Searched diligently for a match to TOT LOTS. Finally concluded that WHOLE LOTS => TONS worked. Clever idea for a puzzle.

Nice one. Needed the fifth nudge because even though I was doing the right thing I was trying to just add one letter (and thus wasn't focused on using other grid entries). Had to backsolve the first T because I had HOME LOTS instead of WHOLE LOTS, and (unsurprisingly) that didn't match anything. Fun stuff, thanks.