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Christy - The Complete SeriesOne of the ways that Corina and I like to wind down in the evenings after we’ve put our little one to bed is by watching a TV show on DVD. Recently, we picked up the 1994-95 series Christy which starred Kellie Martin and Tyne Daly and was based loosely on Catherine Marshall’s novel.

Christy is a great drama. I’m not much for the Hallmark-styled sappy entertainment that women love and men hate. But I have to say… Christy was a pleasant surprise. I caught the two-hour premiere 13 years ago when it first aired and I remembered how good it was. Does the rest of the series live up to the pilot? In short, yes. And unfortunately, this is a show that should have been on for 5-6 years, but was mercilessly canned after just one season (21 episodes). Part of the problem was CBS’ schizophrenia with scheduling. The bigwigs at CBS moved this show around so much that no one knew when it was coming on. It’s a shame, really. Christy is one of the best family dramas out there. Tyne Daly is so convincing in her role as Alice Henderson that you feel you know her. The acting, scripts, and sets are superb. There is enough action to keep male viewers interested and enough romance to woo the females.


The story follows Christy Huddleston, a city girl, who in 1912 decides to move to the Smoky Mountains and teach school to the mountain children of Cutter Gap. The episodes chronicle her trials in adapting to the mountain way of life, her eagerness to teach, her budding romance with the preacher, and her daughter-like relationship to Alice Henderson, the mission supervisor. The series treats the subject of faith with respect and without shying away from tough questions, most of them coming from Doctor MacNeill, the agnostic, and from the Reverend Grantland, the young pastor who is wrestling with his own beliefs.

(Interesting note: In 1996, just a year after the show was canceled, my family and I were on vacation in the Smokies and wound up in Townsend, TN.  The owner of the land where Christy was filmed took us out to the sets and let us look around and take some pictures. The beautiful scenery is even more spectacular in person than it is in the TV series.)

written by Trevin Wax  © 2007 Kingdom People blog

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