MGWCC #945

MGWCC crossword 2:02
meta 1ish rate it

hello, and welcome to episode #945 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 2 puzzle called “Digital Programming”. this week’s puzzle instructions asked for a classic TV show, quickly amended to a classic TV show whose title describes each theme entry. what are those theme entries?

• {Highball cocktail} SEVEN AND SEVEN. this is a cocktail that i first learned about from… MGWCC #152, fifteen (!) years ago.
• speaking of 15: {Like the odds of choosing the king from a bag of one player’s chess pieces (assuming you don’t cheat)} are FIFTEEN-TO-ONE, as there’s one king and 15 non-kings.
• {Nice count for the batter} THREE AND ONE. indeed, MLB hitters generally bat around .370 and slug well over .600 on a 3-1 count.
• {Dolly Parton working hours} NINE TO FIVE.

these theme answers are all pairs of odd numbers, so the answer to the meta is the odd couple. it’s an impressive feat to cross them all with SEVEN AND SEVEN across the middle of this 13×13 grid, although it did require an asymmetric grid. and maybe {Hamiltons} TENNERS was a flaw/distractor with its musk of evenness.

okay, quick write-up today since i’m late and spain-france is about to start. what’d you all think of this one?