We’ve covered giant variety too, from real-life people who had an unusual experience on set (Mistresses was filmed inside my house) to A-listers like Gillian Anderson on her lead roles as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (“a woman who is deeply, almost psychotically manipulative”) and DCI Stella Gibson in The Fall (“an enigma”).

Our documentary posts have spanned stories from the assistant producer on Shark – who was afraid of sharks, to a bereaved officer from the first series of Our War to highly practical advice from Professor Susan Jebb on What’s The Right Diet For You?

And some posts were just plain fun to put together – like Six Wolf Hall insults for everyday life, Mared Rhys’ perma-parka in Hinterland and Romesh Ranganathan being delightfully embarrassed by his mum Shanthi.

To continue getting news and peeks behind the scenes from BBC TV you can find BBC iPlayer, BBC One and BBC Two on Facebook and Twitter. And our fellow BBC blogs – About The BBC, Writersoom and BBC Academy all feature posts about television – such as Meet the reporters from Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared, which you’ll enjoy if you’ve been watching it on BBC iPlayer.

The BBC Love TV blog will remain online as it is so you can read it and watch clips but will be closed to any future comments. Thank you for reading and sharing and posting your comments on the blog – we have loved producing it.

Fiona Wickham edited the BBC TV blog from 2010-2016.

I mean you look at someone like Max Clendinning, who designed chairs that slot together (above) – he was so new and so forward-thinking. But today, we’re talking about traditional homes and modern homes or minimalist homes like it’s something we all created. We didn’t really. It was so much more defining in those days.

I think that some of the great furniture designers of that time have really kind of lasted. You look at a Charles Eames chair from the 50s and 60s and it’s just a classic. It’s a bit like bangers and mash, it will always taste good no matter how rich or poor you are.

I think as time goes by people just keep on regurgitating the same old stuff the whole time – it’s very rare today for somebody to come up with something as iconic as what happened back in the 60s. I think people experimented more back then and that’s the thing which comes across a lot in these early shows.

Kelly's pick: The Home That 2 Built: The Nineties and Noughties

Then you look at Changing Rooms and for me that was just hideous. Linda Barker and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen -  good on them for going in and doing that - but this was taking it to another extreme. They were told: ‘Go in, do what you want and don’t worry about the client, it’s all fine’. And then these poor people walking in and Laurence going: ‘Well isn’t it just fabulous?’

There was no transition from traditional slowly going into a modern interior, Laurence just took them into a dark den – like a club – thinking that was cool. But again, it’s fantastic TV.  For me that was a very defining 90s design moment. Like when Ikea threw chintz out. That was an incredible advert.

Again, the 90s was such a revolutionary change in furniture. No more fuss, the simple look. I think that whole era was just so incredible and I think we forget how dynamic and how refreshing it was for people. 

Kelly’s quick-fire thoughts on…

Flat-pack furniture: Brilliant. I mean just so revolutionary and clever. And less is more.

Water beds: Hideous. I once rented a house in Portugal with all my kids and all their friends and family. And I suddenly saw that one of the rooms had a water bed and I thought: ‘Oh no, my children are going to hate me’. And they all fought over it! I just felt seasick.

Inflatable chairs: Live without those! Anything you blow up really has to be in water in a pool.

Doilies: I absolutely love doilies. I think because they’re so kitsch. I just think they’re really clever and underestimated. 

Kelly Hoppen is an interior designer and curates Home Sweet Home, a collection of archive interior design programmes available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

See real stories of life with cancer, The Big C & Me, BBC One

Forget Ferraris – it’s all about real horsepower

Can Rory get up to speed? Top Gear: Extra Gear, BBC Three

This PC’s weirdest shoplifting story 

Find out more about life on the beat in South Wales, Police 24/7, BBC One Wales

See this super-cute baby spider monkey learning to climb

Inside Guatemala’s busy rescue centre – Natural World, BBC Two

Whatever you do, don’t put mushrooms in Pete’s food…

It’s man vs vegetables as Pete tries to slim down, Lose Weight for Love, BBC One

And finally… if you thought your school was tough, imagine sitting by this guy in class

How ‘Orc School’ turned actors into CGI characters, Warcraft: The Future of CGI, BBC Radio 1

And if you want to see what comedian Miles Jupp picks out on BBC iPlayer this week you can watch Frank Skinner On Demand With...

All episodes are available to watch until Wednesday, 15 June. Find more information about individual episode expiry dates on BBC iPlayer.

See the dangers facing seals and other animals in rural Scotland – Highlands – Scotland’s Wild Heart, BBC One Scotland

The best use of the word ‘shod’ you’ll hear this week (probably)

See how Nina’s fitting in – Love, Nina, BBC One

Alex Jones’ sheer range of emotions as Michael McIntyre types her ‘send to all’ message

Find out who replied – Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, BBC One

Ross Noble imagines Prince Harry’s life – as told by horses

See what else was discussed under host Gary Lineker’s watch – Have I Got News For You, BBC One

Trying to explain technology to your boyfriend’s mum

Get to know the new addition to the family, Kelly – Mum, BBC Two

Matt Lucas playing a donkey is everything you’d hope it would be

See his take on Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, BBC One

And finally, more confetti than an English country wedding at Radio 1’s Big Weekend

Watch performance highlights from the massive music event – BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend

And if you want to see what Springwatch’s Chris Packham picks out on BBC iPlayer this week you can watch Frank Skinner On Demand With...

It felt like this incredible celebration of wildlife had begun, the entire area was transformed. It burst into life, and we were the privileged spectators.

The zebra that we were following here were also part of this gathering and because they seem to time their migration south from Chobe National Park perfectly, many were giving birth in the pan just as the freshest most nutritious grasses were pushing through the earth. 

I’ll never forget watching a new born foal, just minutes old, getting on its feet for the first time. Its mother was gently nudging it, with the stallion proudly standing watch, keeping all others away with loud snorts and hoof stamps.

The frail, delicate little foal, its hair still wet, was on its feet one minute and fast asleep from the excitement of new life the next.

The other members of the herd gingerly approached the mother and foal when the time was right, and finally after an hour or so, the little one had the energy to skip off into the shade of the tree line with its mother, as the sun climbed higher in the sky.

It was such an incredible moment to witness, and for me it encapsulated everything that these mammoth migrations are about.

These animals take on so many seemingly insurmountable dangers and obstacles, risking their lives each year, so they can give the next generation the very best start in life. 

Liz Bonnin presents Nature's Epic Journeys. 

The series continues on Wednesday, 25 May at 9pm on BBC One. Each episode is available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Read cameraman Bob Poole's memories of filming Nature's Epic Journeys

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Will the boys warm to Nina? – Love, Nina, BBC One

If Hippos did spa days…

Watch as barbel fish nibble them clean – Natural World, BBC Two

And Bill Bailey on sloths, who travel “at a pace a snail would consider reckless”

Find out about their unlikely partnership with moths – Natural World, BBC Two

Hairy Bikers Si and Dave get dressed for the occasion at Radio 1

Watch as their rudest lines are played back to them – Innuendo Bingo, BBC Radio 1

Who knew donkeys were such good acting coaches – and selfie pros?

See what it takes to play Shakespeare’s comic character, Bottom – The Best Bottoms in the Land, BBC One

And finally, old friends Barbara Windsor and Pam St Clement are speechless watching their final EastEnders scenes together

See the old friends reunited – on and off-screen – Peggy Mitchell: Last Orders, BBC iPlayer

And if you want to see what comedian Marcus Brigstocke picks out on BBC iPlayer this week you can watch Frank Skinner On Demand With...

When I was talking about the ‘true grit’ of the Britons on South Shields beach, it looks pretty blowy to be sure. It doesn’t quite capture the mad hail storm that called the close of play to the filming, that seeped into every bit of equipment we had and soaked us to the skin.

We were forced into a seaside hotel to change and dry out and then to go back to the beach to try the whole scene again. In fact, of course, the second go wasn’t half as good as the first, so what you see is the sequence before we are hailed off (and I get the giggles).

But the final filming for the whole series we did in Trier, for episode four, was just as chilly. There was German snow falling around some of the most impressive Roman remains north of the Alps.

I was trying to focus on the problems of explaining the ‘fall’ of the Roman Empire (if it ever did fall in quite the way we imagine) but was distracted by increasing frostbite in my hands. It was then that my resourceful producer introduced me to hand warmers, originally made I think for skiers, but usefully transferable to TV presenters.

No doubt most other people in the world know all about these, but I didn’t. They are little pocket-size sachets of crystals, which get hotter and hotter the more you feel them and squeeze them with your hands. Without them I would never have been able to talk about the end of Rome in the wet and cold of wintery Trier. The Romans would have been impressed.

Professor Mary Beard is a classicist and the presenter of Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit.

The series concludes on Wednesday, 18 May at 9pm on BBC Two. Each episode is available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Read Mary's post from episode three: The town that captured her heart

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

While Graham Norton gets straight to the point

Even the cast of new Doctor Who spin-off, Class got involved

Meanwhile, Carol Kirkwood is predicting a Peggy storm

And news of Peggy's departure even reached Brentford's premier radio station

We reckon EastEnders' casting agents would be impressed with Dermot's attempt

This lot tried out a new catchphrase for the day

And Lord Sugar showed how a fellow east-Londoner does it

But of course, no-one nailed it quite like the EastEnders cast themselves

Watch Barbara Windsor's take on the line over the years

Peggy Mitchell's final episode of EastEnders is broadcast on Tuesday, 17 May at 7.25pm on BBC One. It will be available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Be slightly freaked out by these extraordinary creatures of the deep

Dive into nature - Life That Glows with David Attenborough, BBC Two

And discover more eye-opening documentaries on iPlayer.

This properly funny Broadway-style number from Sweden's Eurovision hosts

Watch Petra and Mans' show-stealing performance – Eurovision Semi-Final 2, BBC Four

Did Shakespeare invent the word ‘ceefax’?

See the slightly sweary list of the Bard’s possible made-up words – Cunk on Shakespeare, BBC Two, with some strong language

This uncanny avatar who’ll represent you after you’ve died

See how we can live on digitally - Rest in Pixels, BBC Three

The look Tommy Shelby’s face when he doesn't like what he’s hearing

Don’t mess with Birmingham’s most power-hungry gangster – Peaky Blinders, BBC Two, with some strong language

Plus, find out which shows presenter Alex Jones has been loving in this week’s Frank Skinner On Demand With...

Clifford is a leading soldier of rank in the Lancastrian army, who are fighting to hold the crown against York. His father is murdered by the Plantagenets, who lead York’s army, which spurs Clifford on an all-out mission of vengeance against the Plantagenet family.

His journey eventually leads him to a confrontation with the ruthless Richard III (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) on the battlefield.

It was really fun to play someone who was sort of in his own revenge film. But he has redeeming qualities - I suppose his are loyalty, honour and bravery towards family, king and country.

I’m American, and first got into Shakespeare when I was at college in the United States. I was taking courses at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington D.C. on the weekends. I’d take the train up Friday evening, go to class Saturday morning and then get the train back to make the Saturday night parties on campus.

Those classes are what influenced my decision to come over to London and train at RADA. So working on a project like The Hollow Crown feels really special.

I also really like working in an English accent. It makes me work and think differently and it certainly opens up casting opportunities to roles I never thought I would play. I’ve got RADA to thank for that.

Kyle Soller plays Clifford in The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses and Francis in Poldark.

Episode one of The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses is available to watch in BBC iPlayer until Monday, 6 June. The series continues on Saturday, 14 May at 9pm on BBC Two. Each episode will be available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Kyle's photo is used with kind permission from Andreas Vecchiato.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Two things stand out for me. First was my own exploration of the town. In the programme, you will see me wandering around the place and saying: “Oh wow, this must be the library…” and so on. I guess you might think that this is a set up.

Actually the production team were very keen to stop me from discovering too much about the site before I got there, so that we could see my first reactions to this town I had never seen before. There may have been a few re-takes, but basically what you see is my real excitement in meeting a Roman site I hadn’t seen before.

Second, and equally memorable, was the reaction and support of the local staff on site. They came with us and helped throughout our visit, and wholeheartedly got into the project. One of the young men there was a TV natural. By the end of the second day he had become a smart camera assistant, finding and fixing new lenses to the camera.

And one highlight that came with this was an interview with the ex-mayor of modern Timgad.

I asked him who he thought had been the people of ancient Timgad. He hesitated a little, then said that they must have been part Roman, part Berber, and a right old mixture – just the kind of multicultural melting pot that we were arguing was the distinctive feature of the Roman empire. But it was really nice to hear it from him.

When, a few months later, I had an email from the ex-mayor to say that he had just got my new book, I felt a big rush. It may just be telly, but there is a great hand of friendship here that is unforgettable.

Clichéd I know, but there’s a little piece of Timgad now in my heart.

Professor Mary Beard is a classicist and the presenter of Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit.

The series continues on Wednesday, 11 May at 9pm on BBC Two. Each episode will be available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Read Mary's post from episode two: Exploring recent Roman discoveries

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

He was in full musth, with a swollen head, his temporal glands sweating heavily, and he was dribbling a constant flow of pungent urine. He was huge and his tusks - one broken, the other long and thick curving inward - gave Matt a kind of extra intense look about him.  

He didn’t move much at first, just resting and taking giant breaths, blowing dust around his feet as he exhaled, occasionally flapping his massive ears that slapped against his body. Matt was awesome, even as he stood dozing.

Slowly he leaned forward as if he was preparing to rub his thick skin against the bark of the tree, but his huge head just kept going forward and in an instant he was coming at us in a full charge.

I had just enough time to get the engine going and get way and when it was over my hands were shaking.  Matt had introduced himself to us in a way to make it clear that he was to be respected.

I was also lucky enough to film a population of zebras for the third episode of Nature's Epic Journeys in Botswana, undertaking an exciting, and newly discovered migration - now known as the longest migration of any animal in Africa.

Growing up in Kenya, I’ve seen zebras all my life, but I’ve never really looked at them. It amazed me to learn that I could identify individual zebras in a herd. When you look closely you notice that each of them has a unique pattern on their stripes. Closer observation reveals cuts and scars; many surely from lions.

At first it was hard to tell the males from the females and which individuals belonged to which family, but over time it became easy to recognise. Now I see zebras as individuals who belong to family groups with close ties to each other.

Bob Poole is a cameraman on Nature's Epic Journeys.

The series starts on Wednesday, 11 May at 9pm on BBC One. Each episode will be available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days.

Read more from Bob's experiences on Nature's Epic Journeys.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

See more kangaroo stories – Natural World, BBC Two

These hopeful owners try to prise apart two young dogs at play, only to hear the harsh truth that: “They’re at a rave and you’re offering them the library”

See the playful pups – Choose the right puppy for you, BBC Two

Nick Hewer reveals his take on the “extraordinary, terrible story” of BHS

Watch the panel’s take on the latest news – Have I Got News For You, BBC One

Is it just us, or is this David Tennant’s young doppelganger? 

Watch a unique comedy interpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo – Upstart Crow, BBC Two

And finally – there’s nothing like a child needing a wee to interrupt a live debate

See how presenter Victoria handled the news – The Victoria Derbyshire Show, BBC Two

Discover more comedy on BBC iPlayer.

And if you want to see what In The Club actress Katherine Parkinson picks out on BBC iPlayer this week you can watch Frank Skinner On Demand With...

Travelling with different internet celebrities was just mental, man. Everyone reacts to it in different ways. Vine star Arron Crascall got quite teary missing his family. Other people were more bothered by the bugs and the wilderness.

Some people were just bang up for it, like Conor Maynard - he made me look stupid. And Jenny Jones, the snowboarder, was building a raft in 40 degree heat with her bare hands while I stood in a bush with borderline sunstroke.

YouTubers Rose and Rosie were the most useless of my companions. No question. They were just like me, scared of everything, falling over. And Rosie is vegan. I took a vegan to the Arctic Circle… where there's basically just blubber, fat, blood and meat. She was sobbing every time there was a scene with a dead animal.

I'd like to take other comics with me next time. Someone like Rob Beckett. Or even, if I could talk him into it, Romesh Ranganathan. Maybe we could do one in Sri Lanka when he's filming the next Asian Provocateur. Or Jimmy Carr... it'd be quite funny to see him out of his comfort zone, in exploring shorts!

The third character on the trip is the phone. It is my robot companion. It's as close as we've got to an R2D2 or C3PO.

When you're making a programme called Stupid Man, Smart Phone, it's pointless just trying to be a rubbish Bear Grylls. The phone was the centre of the experiment, of the comedy, of the narrative. The phone's solving every quandary, that's what makes this programme completely unique.

But it taught me there's no substitute for the human element. Maybe my co-hosts would say differently, but you can't beat that feeling of an expert walking in and it's a real person, shaking your hand, talking you through it and helping you. It's just not the same.

I’m really close to my mum and she was just worried for me. I'm always falling over, always injuring myself, so I'm not the best person to be climbing up a mountain or trekking across the desert leading a beast. We were Skyping them all the time while I was away.

But I learnt I could prepare an animal. And I can light a fire without wood - we burnt camel poo one night. I used a tampon and hand sanitizer to start a fire. I've inadvertently learnt quite a lot of survival knowledge.

Thankfully for the team, I'm still a worrier. If we cure that, we don't have a show! A lot of the comedy comes out of seeing me screaming at a spider or a snake or a car door that didn't close.

Interview by Kieran Coyle.

Russell Kane is a comedian and stars in Stupid Man, Smart Phone.

The series continues on Sunday, 8 May from midday on BBC iPlayer. Each episode will be available to watch in BBC iPlayer for six months.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

But some of the new discoveries aren’t excavation in the traditional sense of the word. Long before making this programme, I had read about the way the deep bores in the Arctic ice cap were being made, reaching down to ice at Roman levels.

In these you could apparently detect traces of Roman industrial activity (pollution to you and me). I never imagined that I would actually get to see any of this precious ice.

But the team discovered that one of the main centres of this research was in Utrecht, so off we went.

I have rather blotted out of my mind the journey. Getting on a busy train from Amsterdam airport to Utrecht with all the boxes and boxes of kit isn’t a trip I want to repeat (don’t imagine that documentary travel is all arranged by chauffeur driven limo).

But, when we had got ourselves sorted, inside the rather unexciting exterior of the University of Utrecht, there were some very exciting glimpses of the past.

It was in fact a bit like going to Greenland! First of all I had to get togged up in Arctic clothes in order to go into the very large fridge where the cores are kept. The scientists, I was told, go out to get these deep-drilled samples, staying for months in a frozen Arctic camp with no home comforts whatsoever.

It was heroism in the cause of science that made my travel discomfort in the cause of TV seem rather insignificant.

Then I got a chance to delve into a smaller fridge, where slices of the Roman samples are kept.

The idea is that the scientists analyse the composition of the tiny air bubbles in these samples (which of course melt as soon as you touch them), looking especially for tell-tale methane, which gives away the scale of the industrial processes making their mark on the environment. There is a striking peak in the first century AD, not matched again for over a thousand years.

So where did this come from? The answer is from all the Roman Empire’s burning and smelting. And probably at the very heart of it all were the mines and metal works of Spain, where much of the silver that made (among other things) the Roman currency was extracted and processed.

One of the great things about television for me is that you can put these two things together in the same programme. Later on in episode two we go to Spain, and get a rather nasty glimpse of the kind of exploitation that Roman production depended on. What ended up as a methane air bubble in a core of ice started off in the terrible labour of the miners – including one four-year old whose tombstone we see.

Professor Mary Beard is a classicist and the presenter of Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit.

The series continues on Wednesday, 4 May at 9pm on BBC Two. Each episode will be available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Read Mary's post from episode one: An underwater battlefield

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.