LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: MGWCC #874 — “We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…” by Erik Agard
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a 21st-century TV show (not “The Bear”).
Answer: “One Mississippi” found by 479 solvers, of which 456 were solo solves

Novel and clever meta from Erik last week, as will surprise no one. We begin with a long theme entry split into two at 22-a/36-a, and quite an entry it is: JOON TEAM DISSES / MISS USA IN POP HIT, clued as [With 36-Across: mass-appeal chart-topper co-written by beloved crossword blogger fuels beef with pageant winner].

Then we have another theme-length entry at 50-A: [Adage on a wall sign in “The Bear”] = EVERY SECOND COUNTS. And lo and behold: Count every second letter in the nonsensical theme entry above and you get:

JOON TEAM DISSES MISS USA IN POP HIT

Those letters spell out contest answer “One Mississippi,” the new series starring crossword-friendly Tig Notaro.

Meta – World Peace says:

Glad I didn’t reflexively send in Pahk-s and Recreation

Ha, good one — you win comments this week. Plus we got about an equal number of “Never heard of it”s and “Love that show!”-s…

Big thanks again to eRIK aGARD…Now we go from One Mississippi to Two Mississippi, since this week’s guest puzzler is from Biloxi:

GUEST CONSTRUCTOR: PETER ABIDE

Today’s puzzle is by Peter Abide, a.k.a. “the Dude Abide” (I don’t know if anyone really calls him that but I hope so).

Peter is a veteran MGWCC solver (#14 overall), with many of those in the pre-nudge era. Peter is a moderator at XWord Muggles Forum where he edits and mentors new constructors, primarily at Muggle Meta Mondays (https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewforum.php?f=42). Most of Peter’s recent meta puzzles are found at https://crosshare.org/abide. He has had puzzles published in the NYT, NYSun, and Games Magazine. In his spare time, Peter practices law in Biloxi, MS.

Alright, let’s see what our legal eagle has got for us this week. Good luck!

–Matt, on behalf of Peter