Top Gear: Hammond & May finish filming links for ‘Missing’ episodes

Richard Hammond and James May have completed filming links for the ‘Missing’ Top Gear episodes left over after the Jeremy Clarkson fracas. They will air this summer.

Series 22 of Top Gear was cut short earlier this year after Jeremy had a bit of fisticuffs with a producer, culminating in his removal from the BBC payroll, and Top Gear, and the end of the latest (and last?) series of Top Gear sooner than planned.

The problem for the Beeb was that a portion of every Top Gear episode is filmed the Wednesday before it airs, with the talking heads stuff, like the news, and the Star in a Reasonably Priced car then edited in to the expensively acquired footage of car tests and adventures. But without the Wednesday stuff there was nothing complete enough to air.

The BBC’s solution was to cannibalise a couple of episodes out of the existing tests and adventures footage and link it together using Hammond and May, with the head of BBC2, Kim Shillinglaw, promising the missing Top Gear episodes will air this summer.

It now looks like that’s all completed, with the Telegraph reporting that Hammond and May have finished filming all the required links this week at Dunsfold, so plans to show the missing Top Gear episodes this summer appear to be on track.

What’s still not yet know is what will happen to Top gear now.

It’s been reported that the BBC want to replace Jeremy with a different ‘guest’ presenter every episode – just like they do on Have I Got News for You –  and have reportedly offered Hammond and May a whopping £4.6 million deal to stay for at least a couple of series (by which time Clarkson will be out of Purdah and could return).

But that seems far from a done deal, with reports that all three – Clarkson, Hammond and May – will sign with either ITV or Netflix for a new car show with even bigger pay packets.

But the only thing that’s certain is that a deal will be done somewhere, and for big money, and the three amigos will return, at some point, and in a car show.

For now, the only clear certainty is that the missing Top Gear episodes will be aired later in the summer.