"Pilot: Part 1" is the first episode of season 1 of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
After the death of her father, Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn of Boston, Massachusetts watches their medical practice evaporate and decides she must go where she is needed. She answers an ad for a doctor in the Colorado territory, hoping to continue practicing medicine on her own despite her gender and mother's lack of support. When she arrives in Colorado Springs in 1867, she is met with derision and hostility by most of the townspeople except Charlotte Cooper and “mountain man” Byron Sully. Charlotte is matron of the local boarding house and struggling to support her three children, Matthew, Colleen, and Brian, after her husband skipped town with their savings. Sully is a reclusive loner who befriended the neighboring Cheyenne and adopted their ways following the death of his wife and daughter during childbirth in 1865. (He is also a sensitive hunk who throws a mean tomahawk.) Charlotte helps Dr. Mike acclimatize and they bond. Sully offers Dr. Mike his abandoned homestead to live in and she accepts. Charlotte, also the town midwife, calls upon Dr. Mike to help with a difficult delivery, and she successfully performs a “radical” cesarean section. Charlotte is bitten by a rattlesnake and on her deathbed asks Dr. Mike to care for her children.
This episode provides examples of:
- Anyone Can Die: Charlotte is one of the few townspeople to support Dr. Mike, but ends up dying in the first episode.
- Book Ends: The pilot episode begins with the death of Michaela's father. The second made-for-TV movie ends with the death of her mother.
- Fish out of Water: Mike's first few months in Colorado Springs see her all dressed up in dapper city clothes like she's still in Boston and wondering why everyone is practically thumbing their nose at her. Charlotte helps her to acclimate, and she tones down her outfits to more conservative and plain dress, after it becomes clear that Mike's Sunday clothes are a tad ritzy for church compared to everyone else's. That, and those dresses keep getting soiled in the mud because the roads are unpaved; they're too low to the ground. Mike ends up tripping and face-planting a few times, which causes her to stop wearing them as her everyday clothes and only bust them out for special occasions and trips.
- Given Name Reveal: Dr. Michaela Quinn shows up in the small town she's been hired to be the doctor of, and everyone is expecting a male doctor named Michael. Horace the Western Union Man admits he left the "a" off her signature sent over the wire, to save the town a couple cents of fees, because no one would care what "Dr. Michael A. Quinn"'s middle initial was.
- Lazily Gender-Flipped Name: Michaela's father expected his fifth child would be finally a boy and planned to name him Michael. When another daughter was born, he decided to call her Michaela.
- Multi-Part Episode: "Pilot: Part 1" is followed by "Pilot: Part 2".
- Parental Abandonment: The Cooper children's mother dies and their father was already out of the picture. Luckily, Michaela adopts them and considers them her children.
- Parental Substitute: Charlotte Cooper dies shortly after Michaela's arrival in Colorado and on her deathbed, she begs Michaela to take care of her three children. Michaela agrees, and becomes their adoptive mother.
- Pilot Movie: The producers originally aired the pilot as a TV movie, because they didn't expect it to get picked up as a series.
- Plot-Triggering Death: When Michaela's father died, their patients started going to other male doctors rather than continue being treated by her, and their medical practice evaporated. This directly leads to her accepting the job in Colorado Springs.
- Posthumous Character: Michaela's father, Dr. Joseph Quinn.
- Samus Is a Girl: The townspeople hired Dr. Quinn by mistake, due to a mix-up with her name. Since telegrams were sent without spaces, upper and lower cases, or punctuation, they were expecting "Dr. Michael A. Quinn." They were surprised when Dr. Michaela Quinn arrived.
- Tomboyish Name: After four girls, Michaela's father was expecting a boy, and he intended to name the child Michael. When he was given a fifth and final girl, he instead modified Michael into the feminine Michaela and raised her like the son he never had, grooming her to take over his practice at her own insistence.
- Wanted a Son Instead: One of the very first things we learn about Dr. Michaela Quinn is that her father was expecting a boy after four girls, and he intended to name the child Michael. When he was given a fifth and final girl, he instead named her Michaela and raised her like a son to take over his practice at her own insistence.
