But it could have happened.
"They definitely did not develop this for me," Seymour says of the 1992-98 series. "I was offered it very much at the last minute. It was serendipity."
Serendipity in the sense that Seymour took the role in a movie pilot counting on it not becoming a series. Serendipity in the sense that, had she not been coping with a financial setback at that time, she probably wouldn't have shown any interest.
"I had always told the networks I would not do a series," says Seymour, the stunning British actress who learned to play American. "It was only because of some financial woes that my agent called them up and said, 'Do you have anything for Jane?'"
That led to development of a sitcom for CBS and, soon thereafter, an offer to play Dr. Michaela Quinn in a TV movie.
"I heard about it at 7 o'clock at night on one day, read it at 11 o'clock that night, and at 10 a.m. the following morning I had to make a decision, yes or no," she recalls. "I was at Paramount meeting for the CBS sitcom and I said, 'Well, what do you think?' And they said, 'Oh, it will never make a series. It's a wonderful movie of the week. Why don't you do it and then you'll be available to do our sitcom?'
"So I said, 'Yes, I'll do it.' That was at 10:30. At midday, they said, 'Come in right away.' They fitted me for costumes. And at 6 a.m. the next morning, I was filming it."
And the show they said would never go to series ran for six seasons, attracting a devoted audience that vehemently protested when CBS gave the doc her walking papers. Seymour expressed her displeasure as well, for she had grown to love this sweet-natured family drama that defied conventional programming wisdom.
Reruns of "Dr. Quinn" still thrive at 8 p.m. weeknights on Pax TV and "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Movie" airs this week in the show's former time slot, 7 p.m. Saturday on CBS.
Granted, diehard Dr. Mike fans might consider the new movie, which reunites Seymour, Joe Lando and the rest of the original cast, to be an inadequate network compromise. After all, the fans wanted the series back on a weekly basis.
But maybe they shouldn't abandon all hope just yet. With "Dr. Quinn," apparently all things are possible.
"It was the show that wasn't supposed to succeed," Seymour says. "But they didn't know, did they? The people who judge this are not necessarily the people who live - quote, unquote - normal existences with families and a regular life. And it isn't just in Middle America where viewers have connected with it. Because this thing sold in 100 countries and it's bigger abroad than it is here. That's the amazing part."
The show succeeded, Seymour theorizes, because its gentle spirit, in this age of in-your-face programming, was unique.
"I think it touches the human spirit," she says. "It's about people, all kinds of people, dealing with change and dealing with life and death and dealing with racism and families and politics and the drama of what goes on in the world."