Jane Seymour has given fans an update on plans to recreate her legendary 1990s TV series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
In a new interview with The Messenger, Seymour, who featured as the titular Dr. Michaela “Mike” Quinn in the 1800s period series, stated that one unnamed network recently passed on the project, who allegedly told her, “they weren’t interested in Westerns.”
“We’ve actually got one [episode] written, and we’ve got the whole series planned out,” Seymour remarked. “We just took it to one of the networks, and they said that they weren’t interested in Westerns.”
“I think it’s really crazy,” she continued. “There seems to be a lot of very successful Westerns, so I didn’t get that at all.”
Indeed, there have been a number of popular Western shows in recent years, most notably Taylor Sheridan‘s super hit Yellowstone, which itself has led to multiple spinoffs.
Jane Seymour in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Cliff Lipson
There is also the historical drama Outlander, which started in August 2014 on Starz and is presently in the middle of its seventh season. The drama has received comparisons to Dr. Quinn, since it revolves around Claire Randall, a former Second World War military nurse in Scotland who, in 1945, is transported back in time to 1743.
Outlander has spanned several historical periods and settings, many in the 18th century, from Scotland to Paris to Jamaica to North Carolina. Interestingly, Toni Graphia, who works as a producer and writer on Outlander, served as a co-producer on 30 episodes of Dr. Quinn.
Dr. Quinn centered on Seymour’s Dr. Michaela Quinn, a physician who left Boston in 1867 in pursuit of excitement in the Old West and ends up building a home for herself in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The sitcom aired for six seasons on CBS from January 1, 1993, to May 16, 1998, producing 150 episodes, plus two later television features.
Joe Lando as Sully and Jane Seymour as Dr. Mike in ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman’
Seymour added that amid her attempts to resurrect the show, it was recently proposed that she set it in more modern circumstances.
“It was pitched to me last night, believe it or not, to do Dr. Quinn as a contemporary piece,” Seymour explained. “I’m going, ‘Why?’ The whole point of Dr. Quinn is that life hasn’t really altered that much from the 1870s to now in certain aspects. In other aspects, in a very huge way. But a lot of the same challenges are still issues now, and I think that was what was so amazing about it.”
In 1996, Seymour got a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her depiction of Michaela Quinn. She also garnered many Primetime Emmy nominations for her part.
“When it came out, even the network didn’t believe in it, but the audience found it,” Seymour explained. “I think the audience loves things that deal with the human condition. So in Dr. Quinn, yeah, there was medicine. Yes, it was period. But it was also incredibly intellectual in that it truly talked to what was really going on historically at that time, rather than, you know, what the narrative books would tell us.”
Speaking about Dr. Quinn‘s appeal, Seymour stated, “There were a lot different elements, also the idea of different kinds of family. If it’s authentic and it connects with the human condition, whatever the genre, then I think it’s quite popular.”
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