Book excerpt: In 2005, television's most famous time traveller made a triumphant return to the Saturday night schedules, and began a journey which saw him achieve huge worldwide success and popularity. Times have never been so good. But it wasn't always this way. Between 1898 and 2005, the ""wilderness years,"" the future of the beloved medically-monikered maverick, was far from safe. So what happened to prompt the mighty BBC to finally return our intergalactic hero to prime time television? This affectionate parody of one of the longest-running television series in history finally answers one of its greatest mysteries in which is arguably the greatest adventure's of our hero's lives.