Big Brother (British series 6)


Big Brother 2005, also known as Big Brother 6, was the sixth series of the British reality television series Big Brother. The show followed sixteen contestants, known as housemates, who were isolated from the outside world for an extended period of time in a custom built House. Each week, one or more of the housemates were evicted by a public vote. The last remaining housemate, Anthony Hutton, was declared the winner, winning a cash prize of £50,000. Runner-up Eugene Sully also won the same amount during a task, two days before the final.
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 to date. Davina McCall returned as presenter for her sixth consecutive year. Thirteen housemates entered on launch night, with an additional three being introduced in the fourth week. The series was watched by an average of 4.6 million viewers, the fourth highest viewed series of the show to date.
Big Brother 6 was the subject of viewer complaints and press attention regarding a variety of controversial scenes.

Production

Announcement and promotion

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. In early 2005, Channel 4 confirmed that Big Brother would return for its sixth series in the summer of that year. After speculation that the "evil" theme from the previous series would not return, executive producer Sharon Powers told the press that Big Brother would "continue to be evil this year".
For the fifth year in a row, Channel 4 commissioned graphic designer Daniel Eatock to create the "Big Brother eye". The eye was a sliced mirror of alternating black and blue strips, in reality, two eyes on top of each other. It was publicly revealed on 30 April 2005. Promotional material included an art installation of the eye at the Truman Brewery in East London, constructed out of over 1000 cardboard boxes.
On 9 May 2005, Channel 4 began airing countdown bumpers, eighteen days before the launch.

Presenters and programming

, who had presented the show since its inception in 2000 was confirmed to return to the sixth series as presenter of the live shows, such as launch night, weekly evictions, the finale and other special live shows. Nightly highlights were broadcast on Channel 4, narrated by Marcus Bentley. Dermot O'Leary returned as presenter of Big Brother's Little Brother weekdays on Channel 4 and Sunday lunchtime. On E4, live coverage once again dominated its daily and nightly schedule, with additional live streaming online. Nominations Uncut and Diary Room Uncut also returned. Big Brother's EFourum – introduced in the previous year – was revamped and its name changed to Big Brother's Big Mouth, with Russell Brand continuing as presenter of that show. It was also announced that E4 would be available on the Freeview platform from May 2005, to coincide with the beginning of the series.

Housemates and prize

For the second year, open auditions were used to select housemates; these took place between 5 February and 6 March 2005. The broadcaster told the press that there would be thirteen housemates with a theme of "unlucky thirteen," inspired by triskaidekaphobia.
The winner stood to earn £100,000, however two days before the final, housemate Eugene was offered half of the prize money by Big Brother. He was unaware that refusing the money would have doubled the prize fund to £200,000. He took the money which meant eventual winner Anthony won the same amount as Eugene.

The House

The House for Big Brother 2005 was a radical change from the oppressive and angled House from the previous year. House designer Patrick Watson described the design as "aspirational and yet not wildly practical." Although the House was still quite small, light pale colours and high camera angles gave the viewer the impression that the House is larger than it actually is. Watson also revealed that he accomplished this by extensively utilising mirrors for an airier and cooler atmosphere. Channel 4 described the House as the boldest one at the time and Watson stated it to be complementary to "iPod neutrality."
Pictures of the House were released on 24 May 2005, revealing the outdoor shower and pool. There was a row of three outdoor showers that replace the need for a complete bathroom; two other toilets were contained indoors, one in the living room and one in the bedroom. The tiled floor lead onto the wooden deck of the pool, this year a circular pool positioned in a corner of the garden. 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.
More pictures were released to the press later in the day. 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. These pictures also showed that the House was composed of one main, column-free, airy room with cream-coloured carpeting on which the dining table rested and an elevated kitchen containing a row of yellow cabinets. For the first time, an American-style refrigerator was utilised, giving the housemates more space for food and located next to the store-room. However, the glass wall that allowed housemates to view the bedroom from the living area was disguised as a mirror to ensure that viewers would not be able to count how many housemates would be in the House. Finally, only a few days before launch night, pictures of a loft in the garden leaked to the press. On Day 1, it was shown that it was painted green rather than the pink shown in the pictures. It was also revealed that the bedroom would contain a "heat-seeking" thermal camera.

The Secret Garden

On the opposite side of the main Diary Room entrance was another door, which lead to the "Secret Garden". The Secret Garden was an indoor room decorated like a jungle, and contained a fridge, basic cooking utensils and crockery, a hatch, three beds, a decorative stag head, a television screen and an adjoining toilet. The Garden also contained a telephone that Big Brother used to communicate quietly with the secret housemates, and a "Quiet" sign that illuminated whenever one of the main housemates occupied the Diary Room.
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. For several days, the three housemates had to live in the Secret Garden, with only Makosi knowing their existence. The only clothing initially supplied to the three secret housemates was fig-leaf underwear. With Makosi's help, they had to steal clothes and food from the main Big Brother House when the other housemates were asleep, and to make sure that the other housemates did not find out about them. The secret housemates stayed in the Secret Garden until Day 32, when Orlaith and Eugene were selected by Makosi to enter the main House and become true housemates.

Housemates

13 housemates entered the House on Day 1. In week 5, three other housemates entered the Secret Garden. Makosi then chose two of them to enter the main House, Orlaith and Eugene. When Orlaith voluntarily left weeks later, Kinga who was the third housemate from the Secret Garden re-entered the House.
NameAgeHometownOccupationEnteredExitedStatus
Anthony Hutton23Newcastle70s dancerDay 1Day 78
Eugene Sully27CrawleyStudentDay 29Day 78
Makosi Musambasi24BuckinghamshireCardiac nurseDay 1Day 78
Kinga Karolczak20LondonMarket researcher
Craig Coates20NorfolkHair stylistDay 1Day 76
Derek Laud40LondonSpeech writerDay 1Day 71
Orlaith McAllister26BelfastStudent/modelDay 29Day 65
Kemal Shahin19LondonStudent/male belly dancerDay 1Day 64
Science Harvey22LeedsEntertainment entrepreneurDay 1Day 57
Vanessa Layton-McIntosh19LondonStudentDay 1Day 50
Maxwell Ward24LondonMaintenance engineerDay 1Day 43
Saskia Howard-Clarke23LondonPromotions girlDay 1Day 36
Roberto Conte32LiverpoolTeacherDay 1Day 29
Sam Heuston23LondonStudentDay 1Day 22
Lesley Sanderson19HuddersfieldSales assistantDay 1Day 15
Mary O'Leary30DublinPsychic advisor/writer/white witchDay 1Day 8

Weekly summary

Nominations table

Reception

Big Brother 6 received mixed reviews from professional critics. While one critic called the show "dull and unlikeable", another called it "refreshing viewing". Charlie Brooker called the series "foul and unsettling",and wrote an article criticising most of the housemates individually.
Eleven years after the conclusion of Big Brother 6, columnist Rupert Hawksley opined that the series potentially marked "the moment when Big Brother began its ongoing gurgle in the gutter".

Viewership

These viewing figures are taken from BARB.

Criticism and controversy

Throughout the sixth series, Big Brother was subject to numerous complaints from the viewing public. While some were generalised concerns about the welfare of the housemates, others referred to specific incidents, including but not limited to: Maxwell's claim to have put scabs from his feet into Science's food; scenes filmed in the pool that led some viewers, and housemates, to believe that Anthony and Makosi had sex; Craig allegedly making "unwelcome advances" towards Anthony; Kinga allegedly masturbating with a wine bottle; hostility directed towards Makosi by the live crowd and, allegedly, Davina McCall during the Live Final; and Channel 4 breaking the Advertising Standards Authority's code. There was also commentary by some viewers, and by some housemates themselves, on what appeared to be a clear racial divide between groups that formed in the House. In one group were Anthony, Craig, Maxwell, and Saskia. In the other were Derek, Kemal, Makosi, Roberto, Science and Vanessa.
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". Although Ofcom did not uphold any of the viewers' complaints about the series as a whole, they were particularly critical of the pool scenes and the scene involving Kinga and the wine bottle, stating that such scenes "operated at the limits of acceptability in terms of potential harm and/or offence for a programme of this nature, broadcast on this channel and at this time".

Legacy

In 2008, Charlie Brooker created and wrote the horror mini-series Dead Set, set during a fictional series of Big Brother. It featured several former Big Brother contestants in cameo roles, including Eugene Sully, Kinga Karolczak, Makosi Musambasi and Saskia Howard-Clarke from Big Brother 6.
Housemates Makosi and Craig returned to Big Brother in 2009 as part of a retrospective week of that series, involving tasks from all previous series of Big Brother. They competed against Siavash Sabbaghpour in a recreation of the sixth series' Box task, where housemates had to remain in a cardboard box for the longest period of time.
In 2010, Makosi was a contestant in the show's final series, entitled Ultimate Big Brother, which featured memorable housemates from the first 11 series of Big Brother and its celebrity spin-off. She entered on Day 1 and became the second Ultimate housemate to be evicted on Day 11. Anthony also returned as a guest to have a picnic date with Makosi.
The first three seasons of the Serbian Big Brother series, Veliki brat, used the Big Brother eye logo and the opening titles from this series.