Kevin Rudd suffered a spectacular fall from grace, followed by years of turmoil within a fractured Labor Party.

But have voters forgotten the humble MP who was "from Queensland and here to help"?

Look through key moments from part one of Sarah Ferguson's The Killing Season, which explores the Rudd-Gillard years.

The full episode airs at 8:30pm on ABC. Note: Some of these videos are silent. Click or tap the videos to play.

Kevin Rudd was once a little known MP from country Queensland

External Link: Archival shots of Kevin Rudd

He identifies, very methodically, the sort of people that he needs to have contact with, what influence they might have, and then works very hard, night and day, to cultivate all of those contacts. He is probably one of the most effective networkers I have ever encountered. Wayne Swan, former deputy Labor leader

Who teamed up with the ambitious Julia Gillard from Victoria

External Link: Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard

I think what we were both adjusting to was the fact that we were now a duo — the dynamic duo — and it was kind of fun. Kevin Rudd

Rudd defeated Kim Beazley in a Labor leadership challenge

External Link: Rudd challenges Beazley

It's a very sobering and lonely walk down the corridor in Parliament House — those stark, hospital-like walls — toward the leader's office, almost hoping that the walk would be a little longer than it is. Kevin Rudd

And although not everyone was happy with the idea

External Link: Greg Combet fed up with leadership challenges

After the 2004 calamity where the caucus saw fit to install Mark Latham and Labor lost both houses of parliament I thought, you know, f*** this, to be frank about it. I'm sick of it. Greg Combet, former Labor minister

The popularity of Kevin '07 proved immense

So popular he was mobbed by schoolgirls while campaigning

External Link: Schoolgirls mob Rudd

He caught John Howard by surprise; Rudd even spoke Mandarin

External Link: Rudd speaks in Mandarin while Howard watches on

You could see the [Liberal Party] pulling their hair out in anger and frustration that Rudd was getting away with it. Lachlan Harris, former press secretary to Kevin Rudd

Rudd promised to build the education revolution

External Link: Rudd holds up a laptop

This is the toolbox of the 21st century. Kevin Rudd

And won power through a highly effective election campaign

External Link: Rudd spans the airwaves

He was a formidable force, and it was a combination of both his capacity for discipline, but also his capacity to broadcast warmth, and it was an incredible skill to watch. Lachlan Harris

A visit to a strip club didn't harm his popularity - it boosted it

External Link: Scores strip club in NY

A supposedly dodgy deal over a ute turned out to be a lie

External Link: Rudd appears on Rove

And he reacted with a stimulus package when the GFC hit

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At the end of the day, somebody has to make the judgement [about the financial response to the Global Financial Crisis]. And in the political system we have, that person has to be the prime minister, it can't be anybody else. I said to him subsequently that I thought his instincts were better than mine. Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry

But despite Rudd's public displays of warmth and compassion

We are shaped by our circumstances and by the people who brought us up. My mother was a woman of natural compassion and she could not walk by somebody in need without extending not just a kind word but doing something about it. You can't grow up in that sort of environment ... and not be affected by it. Kevin Rudd

His colleagues say they grew frustrated with his leadership style

Video expired Wed 8 Jun 2016, 6:06am AEST

As the problems for the Government started to accumulate, increasingly Wayne [Swan] and I did something that we hadn't done across all of our lives in parliament together which is actually seek each other out. Julia Gillard, former Labor prime minister

And when the challenge came, Rudd didn't see it coming

On the night [Julia Gillard] marched into the office to announce the coup, I said to her repeatedly: "But Julia, you're a good person, why are you doing this?" Kevin Rudd

The rest is history, and told in full in The Killing Season at 8:30pm