TV Close-Up

Wagons were rumbling by and cowboys swaggered along the boardwalk when, suddenly, murmurs of anticipation rippled among the clutch of women gathered under an enormous oak: Hank the bartender and Jake the barber were about to duke it out over Teresa the schoolteacher.

“This should be pretty good,” said Pam Hughes. “They both want to date her.”

Another chapter was unfolding in the travails of Michaela Quinn, heroine of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” the CBS-TV series about the life and loves of a professional woman determinedly making her way in 19th century Colorado. And as usual, this dust-up would be taking place not only before the camera, but a throng of spectators who had trekked over the hills near the western edge of Los Angeles County to reach the old Paramount Ranch movie ranch.

The show’s cast and crew of more than 200 are back in action after a summer break, and so are the tourists and devoted “Quinn” fans who show up almost every day of shooting. Most are women, drawn equally by star Jane Seymour’s romantic heroine, a gaggle of rugged co-stars and a story line that combines Laura Ingalls Wilder with Danielle Steel.

The ranch, a movie location for 70 years, is within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which by federal law can only be closed to cope with a natural disaster or other public health threat.

The fact that the “Dr. Quinn” set is open to the public has, for the last six seasons, been among Hollywood’s worst-kept secrets, drawing dozens of fans for each episode.

“They prefer not to advertise this, because they don’t want big crowds all the time,” said network publicist Kevin McDonald. Some on the set recalled occasions when guest appearances by Kenny Rogers or Barbara Mandrell could easily have touched off stampedes. “But this is the only production I know of that the public has such easy access to.”

Tickets to watch live-audience productions, such as game shows and sitcoms, are relatively easy to come by in Hollywood, but dramas are customarily filmed on closed sets.

“I’ve been on a lot of drama shows, but never where we’ve had a permanent public set,” said series producer John Liberti. “This is kind of unique.”

It also fosters fan loyalty, acknowledged location publicist Sherry Bray. “It makes us look more user-friendly. People can come and see that we’re just down-home folks.”

So, one recent morning, as the sun climbed and the dusty streets of Colorado Springs grew uncomfortably warm, Horace the town telegrapher (Frank Collison) relaxed between takes, chatting with regular Trudy Gerovske, a San Diego freelance legal secretary who said she schedules her visits between work assignments.

“Once I found out this was open to the public, I made it my business to get up here,” said Gerovske. This day, she wore a T-shirt bearing a photo of the show’s cast, led by the buff, flowing-maned Joe Lando as Byron Sully and the delicately featured Seymour.

The episode of the day was titled “Lead Me Not,” directed by executive producer Carl Binder, and was about the tensions created by the arrival of a women’s temperance league in town.

As the camera was rolled into position, Gerovske joined in the buzz about the disagreement between the characters played by William Shockley as the saloonkeeper--buff and long-maned in his own right--and Jim Knobeloch as the friseur.

“I heard that Teresa was just trying to help Jake learn to read,” Gerovske told her nodding colleagues.

Shockley, it turns out, has fans of his own. One of them is Tess Jocson, an oncology nurse’s assistant from San Diego who watches the show studiously as she prepares to take state exams for her registered nursing license.

“It’s interesting to watch a woman doctor and the instruments and the techniques she uses,” Jocson said. “It’s about the illnesses that they had to deal with. She’ll have a case of sickle-cell anemia. She treats it, but she doesn’t know what it is yet.”

But that’s not quite why she was here.

“Actually, I’m here to bring presents for Hank’s birthday,” Jocson said. “His fans are called Hank’s Hussies, and there are about 200 of us. I put together a scrapbook for about 40 people who sent in birthday cards and photos of themselves.”

The cast is strong on muscular, attractive men, but it offers characters with whom every member of the viewing family can empathize: There are teenagers, babies, young mothers, military men, Indians. For Hughes, who drives down at least once a week from Paso Robles, the reason to tune in is Dr. Quinn herself.

“I’ve been collecting Jane [memorabilia] since I was 10 years old,” Hughes said. “I have all the shows on tape, triple and quadruple. I have 30 albums full of pictures I’ve taken on the set.”

Hughes, who was employed as a baker before going on disability with vision problems, also spends time working to get Seymour a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. That is a project of the International Network of “Somewhere in Time” Enthusiasts, devotees of an elaborately fashioned but critically panned romance that co-starred Seymour and Christopher Reeve.

Seymour seems to have tapped a wellspring of adulation among audiences. “I just think she exudes wholesomeness and warmth, and she’s so down-to-Earth,” said Sandra Abel, a member of the Dr. Quinn Fan Club in Germantown, Tenn.

“If I could be anybody for a day, I would be her.”

Far from being regarded as pests, the regulars are welcomed by the cast and crew, said production assistant Dennis Moran.

“Some of these women have been coming out here almost every day,” Moran said. “They’ve made friends with the crew. They bring cookies and baklava.”

It might be thought that the ease of public access is risky, but problems have been few, publicist Bray said.

Visitors have been escorted out of the park for such infractions as walking into a scene or balking when asked to step out of camera range, she said. The National Park Service assigns a ranger-monitor to help with crowd control whose salary is offset in part by filming permit fees paid by the production company, said location manager Ed Jeffers.

“You get weird letters every now and then,” Liberti, the producer, said. “If they are threatening, we call CBS right away and get them taken care of. I would have to say it’s about average, although I really haven’t seen any letters lately.”

On the whole, the groups that show up are well-behaved and cooperative, Liberti said. Even busloads of students on field trips don’t really get in the way.

And Seymour, for one, says she appreciates the extra attention.

“It’s nice to have some positive feedback from people that couldn’t live without this show,” she said after lunch in the ranch production office. “And some of these people, it’s amazing. It’s, like, their life.”

Flashing her distinctive eyes--one brown and one green--she counted different categories of fans.

“First we have the Quinnites, the people who love the show,” she explained. “We have the Sullyites, the people who are totally obsessed with Sully and his hair, and then we have the people who are obsessed with Hank.”

The fans--as with most other shows on TV--stay in touch over a variety of sites on the World Wide Web. They discuss story arcs, compare notes on their favorite writers and worry openly about whether the show will be renewed for a seventh season, a decision expected by the winter. They find their way to Paramount Ranch from all around the world, the show being popular in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Antje Strelow, a landscape architect from Berlin, craned her neck for a better view of the rehearsals that were drawing Hank and Jake nearer to their confrontation.

“I’d like to see more Sully,” she said, forming the words with precision.

“You’ll find a lot of the women saying that,” chortled Gerovske, pointing out Lando on her shirt. “You can see by looking at him, that’s why.”

At last a bell rang, the signal for silence on the set.

“Stay away from my girl!” one of the actors snarled, then stepped aside as stunt doubles moved in to settle the issue in two or three brief, furious takes.

“Cut!” Binder called out, as experienced fans--who by this time recognize a successful take when they see one--started gathering up their belongings and heading off to the next shot. “It’s a print!”

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“Quinn” watching:

Paramount Ranch is open from 8 a.m. till dusk, two miles south of the Ventura Fwy. off Cornell Road, via the Kanan Road exit. Location shooting of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” is conducted most weekdays and the public may watch exterior shots. But exact schedules are not announced in advance. For information call (818) 735-0876.