"Mike's Dream: A Christmas Tale" is the eleventh episode of season 2 of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Mike is mired in a Christmas Eve career/identity crisis after a patient dies unexpectedly after having a heart attack during routine procedure. After helping a pregnant woman deliver her baby in Robert E.'s stable, She is visited by a friendly angel – the Cooper kids' deceased mom, Charlotte. Charlotte takes Dr. Mike on a trip to the past, present and future. In the past she remembers her father and a scene where she sings carols late at night with her patients during medical school. In her present, she is helping a woman deliver her baby while Mike and Sully hide the woman and her husband from their families who disapprove of their marriage. The future shows Mike with Colleen, Matthew, some grandchildren (though we don't know whose children they are), and a late-arriving Brian who is in his military uniform, having just arrived after being on a ship in the navy. A "grandpa" is in the kitchen cooking, but we never see him or find out his identity. On this journey, Mike concludes that the choices and decisions she's made for her career and life have been the right ones. The grandfather of the newborn child decides that he doesn't want to press charges.
This episode provides examples of:
- Away in a Manger: A pregnant woman delivers her baby in Robert E.'s stable.
- Christmas Episode: As you might expect from the title.
- Composite Character: Charlotte's spirit serves as the Spirits of Past, Present and Yet to Come.
- It Never Gets Any Easier: The death of a patient trigger's Dr. Mike's career/identity crisis.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: Charlotte convinces Dr. Mike that the choices and decisions she's made for her career and life have been the right ones.
- Love-Obstructing Parents: The woman who gives birth and her husband are fleeing their disapproving parents.
- Unseen Character: In Dr. Mike's vision of Christmas future, we don't learn the identity of "grandpa".
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: With Charlotte serving as the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future.
