I agree. This was one of the weakest "specials" yet in my view and felt very fake and forced as you say. Still, by all accounts the team have realised they'd lost the plot a bit so great things are promised in the new series.
Re: The BBC licence tax... If you have ANY device capable of recieving a colour TV signal you have to pay a licence fee. I happen to have a large LCD TV on one of my PC's so have to pay - even though it has no arial attached. Actually, this TV can ONLY pick up analogue broadcasts as it has no freeview capability, combine this with the fact that the analogue signal was turned off last year in our area I should have valid justification to NOT pay a licence as my TV cannot pick up freeview...even if I plugged an arial in to it!
I don't watch any live TV, I can't even if I want to. I do however stream some stuff and have DVD's of numerous shows (copied to media PC) as well as movies - I really should get a bluray player but don't want to fall into "buy everything again on Blueray" trap that many of my friends have...
Scoob.