TV REVIEW : ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman’ Is Bad Medicine

The new CBS drama series, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” is so excruciatingly awful that Jane Seymour should sue the writers for malpractice.

When a bartender orders her out of his saloon because she’s a “lady,” the fetching Michaela Quinn (Seymour), replies, “I’m not a lady, I’m a doctor.”

She’d be just as convincing as a Martian.

In fact, she’s “Dr. Mike,” a high-toned Bostonian who has come west in the post-Civil War era to practice medicine in Colorado Springs, only to be rejected by most of the townspeople because of her gender.

In the marathon two-hour premiere that airs at 8 tonight on Channels 2 and 8, Dr. Mike awkwardly adjusts to rural life while pestering the locals to let her be their doctor. She becomes a surrogate mom to three orphans, and is befriended by Byron Sully (Joe Lando), a hunky loner who hangs out with the Cheyenne and his pet wolf. Meanwhile, “Medicine Woman” dances with wooden characters.

Ever fresh, cool and gorgeous, Seymour looks just . . . marvelous. But when she starts emoting like a frontierswoman (“The only work I knew was doctorin’.”), you know this is monumental miscasting. Nor does it help that Lando’s Sully is a log.

There’s little attempt to give “Medicine Woman” an authentic period look. And with its overcooked depictions of noble Native Americans and ruthless white soldiers, “Medicine Woman” imposes a 1990s social consciousness on the Old West. In Episode 2, a caricaturish Gen. George Custer passes through town in search of Native Americans to abuse. Airing at 8 p.m. Saturday in the series’ regular time slot, this episode finds Dr. Mike courageously fighting a flu epidemic and getting sick herself, with a Cheyenne medicine man riding to the rescue.

More than him, what she needs is a script doctor.