The show followed sixteen contestants, known as housemates, who were isolated from the outside world for an extended period in a custom-built House.

The series launched on Channel 4 on 27 May 2005 and ended on 12 August 2005, lasting 78 days – the fifth longest British edition of Big Brother.

The sixth series of Big Brother was first confirmed in 2002, when Channel 4 made a deal with franchise owner Endemol to keep the show on the air until at least 2005.

[5] For the fifth year in a row, Channel 4 commissioned graphic designer Daniel Eatock to create the "Big Brother eye".

[7] Promotional material included an art installation of the eye at the Truman Brewery in East London, constructed out of over 1000 cardboard boxes (some of which contained televisions).

[14] There was a row of three outdoor showers that replaced the need for a complete bathroom; two other toilets were contained indoors, one in the living room and one in the bedroom.

[14] The other side of the showers lead towards the slightly elevated glass-box lounge that originally had multi-levelled green couches but were eventually replaced with low orange ones.

[15] These depicted the exterior of the Diary Room: a chaotic web of sliced and angled mirrors giving housemates a distorted reflection of the rest of the House.

[15] These pictures also showed that the House was composed of one central, column-free, airy room with cream-coloured carpeting on which the dining table rested and an elevated kitchen containing a row of yellow cabinets.

[19] On the opposite side of the main Diary Room entrance was another door leading to the "Secret Garden".

It contained a fridge, basic cooking utensils and crockery, a hatch, three beds, a decorative stag head (revealed to be able to speak), a television screen and an adjoining toilet.

It was first used on Day 29, when housemates Kinga Karolczak, Orlaith McAllister and Eugene Sully secretly entered the House minutes after Roberto Conte was evicted.

When Orlaith voluntarily left weeks later, Kinga, the third housemate from the Secret Garden, re-entered the House.

[20] Charlie Brooker called the series "foul and unsettling", and wrote an article criticising most of the housemates individually.

[24][25][26] While some were generalised concerns about the welfare of the housemates,[24] others referred to specific incidents, including but not limited to: Maxwell's claim to have put scabs from his feet into Science's food;[27] scenes filmed in the pool that led some viewers, and housemates, to believe that Anthony and Makosi had sex;[28] Craig allegedly making "unwelcome advances"[24] towards Anthony; Kinga allegedly masturbating with a wine bottle;[24] hostility directed towards Makosi by the live crowd and, allegedly, Davina McCall during the Live Final;[24][29][30] and Channel 4 breaking the Advertising Standards Authority's code.

Media regulator Ofcom, which received over 900 complaints about the series, opined in response that Big Brother "offers viewers, unpalatable though it may be, a window on what some complainants believed to be the unacceptable attitudes of some members of society".