‘Dr. Quinn’ Right Medicine for Anemic Night : Television: The show’s family values may be the cure for CBS’ Saturday lineup; could its appeal save ‘Brooklyn Bridge’?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, top-rated CBS has come up with a surprising apparent hit for network TV’s all-but-dead Saturday night schedule.

If the new one-hour series “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” starring Jane Seymour as a frontier physician, maintains its whopping ratings, it will be an ironic success story for CBS.

Why? Because viewers of “Dr. Quinn” are clearly sending CBS the message that they like the traditional values the show is espousing amid TV’s current deluge of suggestive dialogue and bluntness about sex.

And this is the same network that just months ago drew fire over family values from then-Vice President Dan Quayle because the central character on CBS’ “Murphy Brown” was having a baby out of wedlock.

There’s obviously an audience for both “Murphy Brown” and “Dr. Quinn,” and thus, at the moment, CBS is having its cake and eating it too. When you’re hot, you’re hot. And CBS, which also just wooed David Letterman away from NBC, is definitely hot.

There’s another irony--somewhat bittersweet--about audiences latching on to “Dr. Quinn” for its warm depictions of family life and tradition. These are precisely the values that attracted admirers of CBS’ brilliant “Brooklyn Bridge,” which was bumped for low ratings but will be given a last chance with seven remaining episodes later this season.

For sheer artfulness, there is no comparison between “Brooklyn Bridge” and “Dr. Quinn.” But while “Brooklyn Bridge” is a gentle comedy, “Dr. Quinn”--though heavy-handed and overcooked--is a hardy throwback to simple, old-fashioned TV, full of adventure and mythic frontier flavor, with a touch of feminism thrown in as Seymour fights for equality and recognition in a man’s society.

A tough and touchy question, however, must be asked: Has the ethnic flavor of “Brooklyn Bridge”--which revolves around a Jewish family in Brooklyn in the 1950s--been a factor in its ratings problems despite its admirable values and execution?

Is a show like “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” on the other hand, free of such considerations because of its middle-America, grass-roots setting in Colorado? Are family values more salable in one location than another?

CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky doesn’t think ethnicity is a factor in the problems of “Brooklyn Bridge.” And the roughly 250 letters this column received from viewers asking for the return of “Brooklyn Bridge” support that view. The letters came from many states around the nation and obviously from people of various religious and social backgrounds.

“I really don’t think the fact that it’s a Jewish family” is a factor, says Sagansky, adding that the problems are that the series “doesn’t have a highly promotable concept” and must find the proper lead-in show.

Still, one wonders. . . .

“Dr. Quinn,” which airs its fifth episode tonight at 8, is, without doubt, a highly promotable show, partly because of the beautiful and energetic Seymour, and also because the series stirs memories of such predecessors as “Little House on the Prairie” and, yes, even “Gunsmoke.”

The new CBS series is nowhere yet near the quality characterizations of such famous shows, and it seems to be trying too hard to sock home its obvious emphasis on values. But if we learned anything from the letters we received about “Brooklyn Bridge,” it is that there is a real hunger for uplifting values on TV, and “Dr. Quinn” is proof of that.

In CBS’ view, the success thus far of “Dr. Quinn” did not come out of nowhere. Sagansky says it was “the highest-testing series” (with the public) that CBS has ever had. This is not always a reliable barometer: “All in the Family” and “Hill Street Blues” both tested poorly.

“When anything does well, it surprises me,” says Sagansky, “because most of what we put on doesn’t work.” Nonetheless, he adds, CBS had noted the great ratings success in the last few years of several of its dramatic specials with frontier settings--”Sarah, Plain and Tall,” with Glenn Close, and “O Pioneers!,” with Jessica Lange.

“It got us thinking,” he says, “that this is an area, not necessarily a Western, but the kind of show a family can sit down and watch together. These are not hip shows. These are not trendy shows. In the best sense of the word, they are old-fashioned television shows. There used to be a lot of them on television.”

“Brooklyn Bridge” could boast some of the same qualities. But Sagansky concedes, “Somehow people find it easier to relate to ‘Dr. Quinn.’ There’s a whole tradition of pioneer family television. There’s something for everybody--action, adventure, new-wave feminism with a woman doctor. It works on a number of levels. She has a family, so there’s something for the kids also.”

In a startling reversal of Saturday night tune-out, “Dr. Quinn” ranks 14th among 123 series aired this season, averaging a 26% share of the national audience. Its first four episodes have delivered potent shares of 29%, 27%, 24% and 25%.

In addition to the first 12 episodes, already completed, CBS has already ordered a dozen more. A CBS spokeswoman says four of the added shows will be presented this season, taking “Dr. Quinn” through May, and the other eight will help launch the 1993-94 schedule this autumn. The spokeswoman says CBS will rerun “Dr. Quinn” this summer to further establish the series.

CBS is touting the program’s wide-ranging demographic acceptance as proof of its family appeal, and there is some truth to that, although in last Saturday’s broadcast the top viewing category was women over 50, followed by men over 50.

Nonetheless, last Saturday’s figures show that “Dr. Quinn” got 23% of the teen-age audience, 20% of youngsters between 2 and 10, 19% of women 18 to 34 years old, 25% of women 18 to 49 and 25% of women aged 25 to 54.

Young men watched less. There was a 14% tune-in among men 18 to 34, while 17% of those 18 to 49 watched “Dr. Quinn.” However, the percentage grew to 19% for men aged 25 to 54.

The big question, of course, is whether “Dr. Quinn” will hold up and help break network TV’s Saturday night jinx. Sagansky notes that major new hits often “break all the rules”--with the questions in this case being, “Why are you doing a Western? And a female-lead Western? And a show that’s not hip?” He adds: “All hits are flukes.”

CBS, dead in the water just a few years ago, now is competitive virtually every night of the week. Saturdays were its next immediate target, and finding a ratings winner at 8 p.m. to lead off and carry a night--as in the case of “Dr. Quinn”--is always a top network priority.

Sagansky is certain that in “Dr. Quinn” he has a million-dollar lead-in for the right shows. Suggestion: How about “Brooklyn Bridge” for a start?