All,
I was becoming frustrated in my attempts to secure some of the series which have yet to be released by recording them on my sky box so I wrote a mail to UKTV . They did reply albeit not really helping with my issue and most of their response wouldn't really apply to LOTSW. For what its worth the extract from their reply is shown below
We schedule episodes in order, but sometimes an episode is judged to be unsuitable for pre-watershed transmission by our compliance checkers.
If we are showing the programme before the watershed, we may have to skip certain episodes, to prevent risking an Ofcom fine if viewers complain.
There may be an issue with showing certain episodes if they conflict with similar shows on other channels or if we are unable to obtain the rights to that episode or series. We are also sensitive to current affairs and an episode may be replaced at late notice due to the topics it covers.
Where possible we show all the episodes in the right order, except that some episodes may have to be missed out. Whilst we realise this can affect the flow of the story, we do our best to maintain running order.