Grid: 10 minutes; meta: 2 days + teamwork 

Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Consider the Alternative” — Conrad’s writeup.

This week we’re in search of a six-letter phrase. There have been six theme entries with clues starting with “One of…”

• [17a: One of the presidents of the U.S.]: WASHINGTON
• [23d: One of the New England states]: CONNECTICUT
• [25a: One of the sevenths of the week]: THURSDAY
• [38a: One of the months of the year]: JANUARY
• [40a: One of Shakespeare’s plays]: MACBETH
• [44d: One of the Ivy League schools]: CORNELL

I noticed an apparent (and doomed) rabbit gap in a short time: MCFLY, clued as “Back to the Future” surname. (Doc) BROWN is one other “Back to the Future” surname, and BROWN is an Ivy League college. I used to be fairly certain I had the theme… after which spun  my wheels for a very long time. LIMP (clued as “Walk with a hitch”) kind of matched (the month of) MARCH, however that was a fairly weak hyperlink. And nothing else labored.

I attempted different concepts, received nowhere, and chosen OPTION as my Hail Mary guess (six letter synonym matching “alternative”). Then I collaborated with a fixing pal who was additionally caught. We kicked concepts round, and he discovered the rabbit: every theme entry had an alternate reply that was the identical size: WASHINGTON/EISENHOWER, THURSDAY/SATURDAY, and many others. We triple-checked for ambiguity (finding out lists of Shakespeare performs, U.S. presidents, and many others.), and there was none. Each theme entry had precisely one match of the identical size. The first letters of the matches shaped the nonsense string ERSOOH. We tried anagramming that and received nowhere.

WSJ Contest – 10.07.22 – resolution

So we wanted to search out step three, and we did. There have been six 3-letter grid entries that contained the primary letter of a themer and its match (so as), leaving the third letter:

• 1d: CR(O): CONNECTICUT/RHODEISLAND
• 3d: MO(P): MACBETH/OTHELLO
• 21a: WE(T): WASHINGTON/EISENHOWER
• 58d: CH(I):CORNELL/HARVARD
• 59d: TS(O): THURSDAY/SATURDAY
• 62d: JO(N): JANUARY/OCTOBER 

The last letter of every three-letter entry spell OPTION, our contest resolution (and my Hail Mary guess). Tough meta, however honest. Readers: let me know the way you probably did, and describe the rabbits you chased. And elevate a glass should you chased Doc BROWN again in time.