Christy

from People magazine, April 11, 1994

Based on Catherine Marshall's novel, this series stars Kellie Martin as an inquisitive young woman of some refinement who takes a job at a mission school deep in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee in 1912. In a curious bit of casting, Tyne Daly plays her Quaker mentor.

It takes some adjustment for Martin to understand these rough-hewn mountain people and their superstitions, blood feuds and stubborn pride. Nothing could have prepared her for the grinding poverty of her tattered and smudge-faced charges, who look like refugees though they're living on their native soil.

There are also some surprisingly good-looking' dudes up in them thar hills, including a bucking young minister (Randall Batinkoff) and a ruddy Scottish doctor (Steward Finlay-McLennan) with a burr under his bedside manner. Both of them are infatuated with our plucky young heroine.

Filmed on location in the mist-shrouded Smokies, this wholesome show is much like The Waltons and Dr. Quinn, but rendered with a more literate sensibility and more conviction. The acting, however, isn't particularly distinguished. Grade: B


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