DR. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within

Dr. Quinn (Jane Seymour), Byron Sully (Joe Lando) and their younger children, Katie (Sara McRae) and Brian (Shawn Toovey), look forward to attending the college graduation of eldest daughter Colleen Jessica Bowman). The first woman to attend Harvard Medical School, Colleen risks antagonizing her colleagues by accepting her first place honors in person. Although Colleen is married to classmate Andrew Cook (Brandon Douglas), her prominent father-in-law, chauvinistic Dr. Charles Cook (Vlasta Vrana), indulged her pursuit of higher education only because he expected her to fail. Dr. Cook is also the personal physician of Dr. Quinn’s wealthy mother, Elizabeth (Georgann Johnson), who refuses to let heart disease keep her down. Dr. Quinn openly questions the treatment her mother is getting from Dr. Cook, but she vacillates about the wisdom of his advice that Colleen should avoid stepping on the toes of the medical establishment. Meanwhile, without divulging his desire to relocate, Brian uses Elizabeth’s influence to obtain a journalistic apprenticeship. While Dr. Quinn fusses over the ailing Elizabeth, some pillars of the community wine and dine Sully in hopes of securing cooperation in a land-grab scheme out West; they must not have heard that Sully is a personal friend of President Ulysses S. Grant. As Elizabeth’s heart deteriorates, Dr. Quinn defies Dr. Cook by proposing a radical new surgery. Although Dr. Quinn expects feisty Elizabeth to risk the operation, she needs to revive her own fighting spirit on Colleen’s behalf.

Screenwriter Beth Sullivan, who created the popular Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman series (1993-1998), explores her protagonist’s identity crisis — both as a daughter and a physician — in telling detail. She also raises the energy level of this second Dr. Quinn feature by giving her frontier folk a change of scenery and letting them make some pioneering moves in staid Boston. leave a comment --Robert Pardi