DR. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Movie

Byron Sully (Joe Lando), a pioneering environmental activist, figures that a proposed mine could poison the drinking supply in Colorado Springs. After the townspeople grudgingly concur, Sierra Copper Company front man Mr. Garrick (Mark Collie), returns empty handed to his boss, unscrupulous magnate Mr. Carraway (Stephen Meadows). Carraway is not deterred: He intends to snag the town’s mineral and copper rights at any cost. While Sully and his wife, Dr. Quinn (Jane Seymour), attend a surprise birthday party in town, an intruder breaks into their home, knocks out the babysitter and kidnaps four-year-old Katie (Kaile Zaretsky), whom Carraway intends to use as leverage. But he and his family encounter Apaches on the warpath, and when Sully’s search party locates a burned wagon and the charred remains of a little girl, he and his wife assume the worst. A tearful funeral ensues. Fortunately, Sully’s blood brother, Cloud Dancing (Larry Sellers), does some networking among the tribes and learns that the dead child belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Carraway. In the interim, Carraway and Senora Carraway (Jacqueline Torres) have escaped to their Mexican Hacienda with Katie. Sully, Dr. Quinn and their neighbors follow, running into interference from the Mexican Army; Carraway bribery ensures that Dr. Quinn, Horace (Frank Collison) and Jake (Jim Knobeloch) are arrested on charges of abetting a wounded bandit. It falls to Sully to retrieve his daughter and rescue his wife and friends from execution.

Twnetieth-century dilemmas are herded into veteran actor-turned-director James Keach's 19th-century corral in this sugar-coated Western, but viewers who can look beyond this devise will enjoy how cleverly screenwriter Josef Anderson uses Dr. Quinn’s medical skills to advance the plot. leave a comment --Robert Pardi