New Top Gear transmission DELAYED – and be just SIX episodes

It seems ongoing production problems with Chris Evans new Top Gear mean the planned start date is pushed back and there will be just six episodes.

Any new venture takes time to gel, and although the ‘New’ Top Gear – with Chris Evans and Matt Le Blanc headlining – may be a re-boot of the familiar Top Gear franchise, it does appear to have been beset by problems.

It seems there have been endless problems with getting things technically up to standard after much of the old Top Gear production team took flight when Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and producer Andy Wilman took flight to Amazon Prime, and Lisa Clark – brought in to control the production – left after a couple of months. Script Editor Tom Ford also departed, and BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw took her leave.

But it now appears – according to the Daily Mail – that the production problems have impacted on the scheduled start date of new Top Gear – announced by Evans as 8 May – and it now seems likely it will first air a couple of weeks later  on 22 May.

Not only that, but the planned run of eight shows has been cut to just six, partly because the filming schedule is so far behind and partly to make sure the first series is done and dusted before the Olympics and European Championships kick off on TV schedules in the summer.

The Sun also claims many of the problems for Top Gear are down to Chris Evans being a ‘control freak’, and that Evans was against bringing in Matt Le Blanc as co-host. But we should probably put that down to headline-grabbing gossip as much as anything.

It’s not exactly a shock that the new Top Gear is having problems – they’re trying to fill might shoes – but, interesting though the gossip is, we should really wait until the show actually arrives to pass judgement.

Even if that is later than planned.