Top Gear Season 22 will put its controversial season to a close with the airing of the last 3 episodes using never-before-seen footage of Jeremy Clarkson before he left the show in March.
The Guardian reports BBC2 controller Kim Shillingshaw has confirmed the Top Gear Season 22 episodes will go on air this summer at the earliest or before the end of the year. Summer is also the timeframe former Top Gear presenter Clarkson mentioned as the time he will be back on the air with a new car show.
Confessing she is a fan of the show Shillingshaw promised, "There is no way I would not want the available material not to be seen by viewers." Shillingshaw is also reportedly working with Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman on the re-edits of the final episodes.
The resolve to air the shelved episodes can also be seen as a way for BBC to somehow recoup both its financial and viewership losses. The timeslot vacated by the abrupt end of the Top Gear season in March reportedly lost some 4 million viewers of the BBC's top-rating motoring show, reports Auto Evolution.
Former Top Gear presenters Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May together with their producer Wilman in the meantime have been sighted meeting with internet channel Netflix presumably about a new car show.
The three presenters have already come up with a name for their show on Netflix. A Clarkson pal revealed to the Daily Mirror, "If it goes ahead, they're planning to call it House of Cars, which is just genius."
The title is a take on the Netflix hit political drama "House of Cards" starring Kevin Spacey as US congressman Frank Underwood. The series was one of the first to be produced by Netflix as it transitioned from being a broadcaster to having its own in-house productions.
The Top Gear hit makers cannot use the BBC-owned Top Gear name if they do start a new motoring show with the video streaming channel.
The Mirror also reports the former Top Gear team was in talks with BBC rival ITV last week.
The source however hinted at the talks not going well due to the channel's concern that Clarkson and team may offend their car advertisers, "The headache with ITV is going to be the potential conflicts of interest with advertisers. What would they do if Jaguar or Volvo had a sponsorship deal but they wanted to berate its latest new car? Jeremy doesn't like being told what to do. It could cause huge arguments."
BBC and Netflix both do not use advertising and instead rely on subscriber fees. The car-challenge series took in 6 million viewers for BBC2 and BBC America's top-rater program before the network decided to drop Clarkson after an incident with a producer over a hot meal.
The Clarkson-helmed Top Gear Season 22 was watched in over 100 countries and generated around £50million for BBC Worldwide.
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