Episode
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Circus
Overview
A ragtag circus, consisting only of Heart and Atlantis, a mother-and-daughter team, arrives in Colorado Springs. Heart, the mother, enlists the townsfolk to participate as performers. Everyone accepts but Mike, whom Heart tries to engage as a trapeze performer. Later, in the homestead, Colleen reveals her fear of being in the limelight, and Brian asks Sully if he'll perform on the trapeze, per Heart's request. Sully says to Mike, ""I will, if you will,"" upon which Mike says she'll perform if Colleen will. Colleen reluctantly accepts the challenge. Heart engages the Reverend to be a magician, with Miss Dorothy as his lovely magician's assistant. Brian and Loren are the designated clowns. Colleen, Atlantis and Matthew do a tightrope act together, and Jake is pressed into service as the ring announcer. The town happily embraces their various roles in the circus, but friction occurs between Mike and Heart when Mike discovers that Atlantis, Heart's daughter, has webbed fingers. Mike wants to
Details
- Series
- Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
- Season
- Season 2
- Episode
- Episode 14
- Air date
- 1994-01-15
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
The Circus is Episode 14 in Season 2 of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. It aired on 1994-01-15. The runtime is 60 min.
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Episode 13: The Offering
Mike and Sully work to treat a typhus epidemic at Black Kettle's camp, which begins after Mike and Sully unwittingly convince Black Kettle to accept government blankets infected with the virus. Mike is heartbroken and guilt-ridden as she battles the tribe's typhus epidemic. When Matthew comes down with typhus, the town panics and locks the children in the clinic alone with Horace. Colleen treats Matthew and Horace contrives to send the kids out to the reservation to be with Mike. Meanwhile, the town prepares for the Fourth of July, ironically missing the point entirely that the first Americans, the Indians, are being systematically wiped out and further, that the newest Americans, the Immigrants, have just had their camp destroyed by the typhus-fearing townsfolk
Episode 15: Another Woman
Catherine, a beautiful blond woman captured by and raised with renegade Indians, is brought to Colorado Springs by soldiers when her tribe, which includes her husband, is wiped out, leaving her the sole survivor. She initially earns the townsfolks' sympathy, then their contempt when she rejects their gestures of kindness, doesn't know the language, and falls down into an epileptic fit. Indeed, her Indian name was ""Shivering Deer"" thanks to her grand mal epileptic seizures.
Mike takes her in, but the only members of the family she trusts and feels comfortable with, especially with her faltering English, are Sully, then Brian. Brian, however, becomes decidedly less enamored of her when he accidentally glimpses Catherine kissing Sully. Later, when Brian confronts Sully, he doesn't understand Sully's distinction between ""being kissed"" and ""kissing someone,"" and troubled, tells Mike about it.
Meanwhile, Jake, in a conversation with Loren and Dorothy about what marauding Indians do to white
More episodes from this season
Episode 12: Crossing the Line
Miners gather in front of Loren Bray's store to protest Loren's not extending credit to striking miners, and for doing business with the mine owners. A budding union leader, Conrad, is there trying to organize the workers. At the same time, Travis Stone, the mining boss, rides up, hands out flyers advertising for scabs. An angry miner throws a stick of dynamite onto Loren's porch, which Sully, who gets knocked out in the subsequent fray, comes to just soon enough to put out. Matthew takes a flyer -- decides he'll take the job to augment building costs on his homestead. By doing this, he's at cross-purposes with Sully and Mike, who try to talk him out of it.
Grace tells Loren she won't be buying anything from him until the strike's over, due to his unfair trade practices with the striking miners. Matthew finds, to his dismay, that Loren charges 10 cents on every dollar of ""scrip"" (miner's credit) for ""bookkeeping"" costs. Later, as Mike administers some bicarbonate of soda (Brian's got a
Episode 16: The Orphan Train
Eight orphans arrive on the train. The Reverend takes them in at the church and Mike nurses their ailments. When no one in the town wants to adopt the orphans, the Reverend extends a proposal of marriage to Mike so that they can raise the orphans together. Mike briefly considers the offer, and Sully confronts her about it, asking her if she loves him. She accuses him of not making any kind of committment to her, whereas the Reverend has, to which he replies, ""If marriage is all you want...."" leaving his meaning clear without being spoken that he's possibly willing to offer more. Considering this, Mike turns the Reverend down, much to the relief of Sully and the Cooper kids.
Eventually, the orphans board the train and leave town, but each orphan boards the train a more complete person as a result of their interaction with the townsfolk. Dr. Mike confronts the fact that she can't save the world and she and the Cooper kids emerge as a more united family.
Episode 11: A Christmas Tale - Dr. Mike's Dream
Mike's Christmas Eve gets off to a bad start, triggering a personal crisis for Mike. Through no fault of her own, a patient dies of a heart-attack on the operating table as Mike performs a routine operation on Christmas Eve. The deceased man's family blames Mike. Later, at home, the Cooper kids bicker. Next, as Mike, Sully and the kids are on their way to the town's Christmas Eve party, Robert E comes to ask Mike to deliver a baby for a couple who's just come into town. The couple, married against their parents' wishes, are on the run. Robert E offers them the use of his stable for the birthing, as the couple's fathers, who're in close pursuit, will certainly find them at the clinic. Mike goes to attend the delivery, which causes her to miss the event.
Episode 17: Buffalo Soldiers
A troop of black cavalry soldiers ride into town intending to cover themselves in glory by eradicating hostile Dog Soldiers who've been attacking the railroad. Mike commits an act of civil disobedience by tipping off the Indians, which results in carnage on both sides and the defeat of the Buffalo soldiers. She's accused of treason, and jailed, but the arrogant black cavalry leader,
Sergeant Zachary Carver, manages to exonerate her when he's made to realize, through the combined efforts of Sully and Mike, that his beloved troops are nothing more than pawns in the U.S. Army's policy of genocide against the Indians. Returning the favor, Mike manages to medically fake the Sargeant's death, and he escapes court martial.
Meanwhile, Colleen cheats on a test and by doing so manages to win a school trip to Washington. Mike must then explain the concept of ""good lying;"" that is, civil disobedience for a principle, and ""bad lying,"" that is, Colleen's self-serving actions regarding the test. In t
Episode 10: Sully's Choice
Mike is called away to Soda Springs to help with an outbreak of influenza and Sully promises to stay with the children. Sully plays ""Mr. Mom"" but the kids grow restless. While out exploring caves with Brian, Sully is shot trying to intervene between the Indians and the cavalry. When the smoke clears, Brian can't locate Sully and goes to town for help. The Reverend helps the kids hide Sully, who now has a bounty on his head. They take Sully to the cave for safety. Colleen enlists the Reverend's help to bring supplies from the clinic, but he is spotted by Hank and Jake, who are out for the bounty. They knock Hank out and tie him up, but when Colleen is forced to remove the bullet, she must employ Jake's assistance to save Sully's life. When finally they ride back into town, the Cavalry tries to arrest Sully for blowing up the railroad, but the townsfolk provide Sully with an alibi preventing his arrest.
Episode 18: Luck of the Draw
When Julius Hoffman rides into town and engages Matthew in a poker game, Matthew thinks he's found a great way to earn money to finish he and Ingrid's homestead, although Mike and Sully disapprove. At first, Matthew wins steadily, though he and Ingrid get into a terrible fight when, after missing an elaborate dinner she cooked for him (he was in a game), he confesses he used her hard-earned laundry money, which she gave him for building supplies, as a stake.
Though Ingrid and Mike disapprove heartily, Matthew continues playing the game, even after he gets beaten up and robbed of his earnings. Eventually, townsfolk become so confident in Matthew's abilities that everyone but Mike, Sully and the Reverend back Matthew in the big poker game. The Reverend pulls Mike aside and confesses that he was once a gambler, knew Julius, and suspects that the town's been set up.
As Matthew makes his way to the big game, Ingrid breaks up with him over his poker playing. In the process, she returns the e
Episode 9: Best Friends
Colleen and Becky become best friends when, at Bray's store, Alice, another friend, insists on taking Colleen's favorite fabric to make a dress for the Sweethearts' dance. Dorothy fears she may be pregnant when she faints in the general store. Mike assures her she is not, but she is beginning the ""change of life"". Later, Mike is frustrated when she tries to teach Sully to dance the Sweethearts' reel. Mike confides to Dorothy her fears about a physical relationship and Dorothy guesses Mike is a virgin. Meanwhile, Becky asks her new best friend, Colleen to ask Richard, a boy she likes, if he likes Becky. He asks Colleen if ""the girl,"" (he thinks it's Colleen) will meet him at the kissing tree. Colleen misunderstands, thinks he knows it's Becky. She tells Becky where to meet him, but Becky chickens out and Colleen goes in her place, to explain. Richard, assuming Colleen is there to meet him, kisses her. Becky finds out and is heartbroken. Becky and Alice team up against Colleen and spread
Episode 19: Life and Death
Tom Jennings, Dorothy's son, shows up in Loren's store one day when Mike and the kids are there shopping. He's a Civil War Veteran with an old war injury -- his leg was almost blown off. Dorothy asks Mike to treat him when he complains of pain in his seemingly healed leg. She gives him a syringe of morphine for the pain, not noticing his blissful expression. Mike invites he, Dorothy and Loren to dinner. During dinner, Colleen develops a crush on him. Sully's suspicion is piqued when Tom leaves and he forgets to use his cane.
The next day, Tom returns to Mike, telling her his leg hurts. She treats him, but denies him her last vial of morphine, which she's saving for an emergency. Later that day, Loren catches Tom slipping a vial of patent medicine from the store under his coat. When Dorothy confronts Tom, he replies that the pain just got to him, and complains that Mike won't give him any morphine. Later that night, he goes out and tries to mooch free drinks at the saloon. Later still,
Episode 8: Giving Thanks
Mike and Sully have trouble adjusting to the new status of their relationship, ""courtin'"". Sully introduces Mike to his world, taking her into the woods, showing her how to track and hunt. Mike pressures Sully into coming to a town meeting, where tempers flare over the scarcity of water. Later, Sully takes Mike to his home, a simple lean-to, and she wonders how they can make a life together when they're so different. Horace's attempts to divine for water fail, and Hank decides its time to pull up stakes and take Myra with him. Robert E and Grace also consider leaving. Mike and Sully persuade Cloud Dancing to share his methods for water conservation and farming with the town, only to be rebuffed by Loren and Jake. Loren and Jake take water from an Indian pond which Cloud Dancing warns is poisonous, but they sell the water to the townsfolk anyway. Everyone gets sick from the contaminated water and Dr. Mike must treat them. Afterward, the town pulls together to create a Thanksgiving feast
Episode 20: The First Circle
Robert E buys a house in town. When the auctioneer, Jedediah Bancroft, sees that he's sold the house to a black man, he tries to renege, but Mike intercedes. Later, Mike is surprised to learn that Jake, Loren, Hank and Dorothy are displeased to have Robert E and Grace living in their midst.
That night, at the homestead, Matthew tells Mike he's been invited to join a new men's club -- the Ku Klux Klan, which he knows nothing about but is heading out the door to investigate. At the meeting, Jedediah, the leader of the group, promises only ""a big surprise"" for the following night, then adjourns the meeting. The next night, townsfolk don white gowns, recite the KKK oath, and ride out to harass and beat Robert E. After treating Robert E, Mike storms into the barbershop, where she confronts Jedediah, Jake, Loren and Hank about the events of the night before. Jedediah tries to make offers to get Robert E and Grace out of town, even threatening Mike with the mortgage on her clinic if Robert E