Jessica Bowman Movies

The long-running CBS drama series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was briefly resurrected in this made-for-TV feature film. Jane Seymour again stars as feisty 19th century doctor Michaela "Mike" Quinn, with Joe Lando as her sweetheart Sully. After a few minor crises in their frontier home town, Mike and Byron head to Boston, there to care for Mike's ailing mother Elizabeth (Georgann Johnson) and to attend the graduation of Mike's Harvard-educated daughter Colleen (Jessica Bowman). Spicing up the plot is a tense sequence in which Colleen performs an emergency tracheotomy and Sully settles a political argument by wielding a hatchet. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within was originally broadcast on May 12, 2001. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The sixth and final season of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman ushers in two new regulars: Alex Menesas, replacing Michelle Bonilla in the role of Colorado Springs' schoolteacher Theresa Morales; and John Schneider, briefly introduced the previous season as wealthy ex-prospector Daniel Simon, a friend of Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn's (Jane Seymour) husband, Sully (Joe Lando) -- who has become a fugitive after helping Cheyenne shaman Cloud Dancing (Larry Sellers) escape his reservation. With Dr. Mike's foster son Matthew (Chad Allen) studying law, Daniel takes over as the town's sheriff, joining Mike in her search for the missing Sully and hoping to catch up with the fugitive before he can be killed by vengeful Cavalry sergeant McKay (David Beecroft), who holds Sully responsible for the massacre that followed Cloud Dancing's escape. This tense situation is resolved peacefully, with both Sully and Cloud Dancing returning to Colorado Springs, and the latter falling in love with newspaper editor Dorothy Jennings (Barbara Babcock). Meanwhile, Dr. Mike's foster daughter Colleen (Jessica Bowman) finishes college and enters the same medical school where Mike received her diploma. Though a run on the Colorado Springs bank causes a mini-depression in the community, the town's spirits are lifted at season's end, as Colleen prepares to marry Dr. Mike's young assistant, Dr. Andrew Cook (Brandon Douglas). ~ All Movie Guide

In this made-for-television domestic drama, a young adolescent girl is shocked to discover that the woman she calls "Mother" may not be related to her at all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jimmy Smits makes his first series appearance as recently widowed Detective Bobby Simone. Immediately upon joining the 15th Precinct, Simone is teamed with Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) to investigate the accidental killing of a bystander by a cop during a mob shoot-out. Simone also staves off a violent confrontation between Lesniak (Justine Miceli) and her disgruntled ex-boyfriend (Bruce Nozick). And once this crisis has passed, Lesniak checks out the claims by a woman who thinks her husband is molesting a little girl -- his own daughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Enjoying astonishing (and well-deserved) popularity at a time in TV history when dramatic programs trafficking in "family values" were few and far between, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was also one of the last of that hardy breed known as the "TV Western." Set in Colorado Springs, CO, in the years just following the Civil War, the weekly, 60-minute series starred Jane Seymour as Michaela "Mike" Quinn, one of a handful of women doctors west of the Mississippi (or anywhere else!) during the second half of the 19th century. After the death of her father and medical partner, Dr. Mike left her hometown of Boston to set up practice in the hardscrabble village of Colorado Springs. Not surprisingly, she encountered much hostility and mistrust from the townsfolk, but gradually won them over not only because of her medical brilliance, but because she was almost unerringly "in the right" at all times. When one of her first patients, Charlotte Cooper (Diane Ladd), died of a snakebite, Dr. Mike inherited the woman's three children, who at the outset of the series ranged in age from 10 to 17. Oldest son Matthew Cooper (Chad Allen) grew up to become the town's sheriff, and later went off to study law; daughter Colleen (played by Erika Flores from 1993 to 1995, thereafter by Jessica Bowman) eventually followed Dr. Mike's footsteps by pursuing a medical career, and ultimately married her foster mother's young assistant, Dr. Andrew Cook (Brandon Douglas); and youngest Chandler boy, Brian (Shawn Toovey), got into many a scrape -- some of them near-fatal -- in the course of the series.

Also in the cast was Joe Lando as taciturn mountain man Byron Sully, who spent most of his time communing with nature (including his pet wolf) and commiserating with the local Cheyenne Indian tribe. In the early episodes, Sully was merely the man who owned the house rented by Dr. Mike and her "instant" family; later on, he and Mike fell in love, got married, and had a daughter named Katie. The huge, rotating cast of recurring characters included curmudgeonly (and, initially, downright nasty) storekeeper Loren Bray (Guy Boyd in the pilot episode, Orson Bean thereafter); Bray's sister-in-law, Dorothy Jennings (Barbara Babcock), editor of the town newspaper; Grace (Jonelle Allen), a black woman who owned the town diner; telegraph operator Horace Bing (Frank Collison) and his bride, Myra (Helene Udy), a former saloon girl; Myra's ex-boss Hank (William Shockley), owner of the local "sporting house"; Rev. Timothy Johnson (Geoffrey Lower), who functioned as the town schoolteacher until Teresa Morales (played first by Michelle Bonilla, then by Alex Meneses) took over; Loren Bray's conniving buddy, barber Jake Slicker (Jim Knobeloch); Sully's old pal, wealthy ex-prospector Daniel Simon (John Schneider); and the much-maligned Cheyenne medicine man Cloud Dancing (Larry Sellers), whose persecution at the hands of the U.S. military aroused the fire-breathing activism of pioneering feminist and humanitarian Dr. Mike.

Our heroine also fought tirelessly for the rights of blacks, Hispanics, battered wives and practically everyone else who suffered under the weight of bigotry and misunderstanding in the Old West. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was far and away CBS' most successful and beloved Saturday-night series throughout its five seasons on the air, and has remained an audience favorite on cable and in syndication. ~ All Movie Guide