TV REVIEWS : ‘Christy’s’ Pioneering Spirit Enriches a Homespun Tale

“Hold on to joy,” the idealistic new schoolteacher in Cutter Gap is advised by her Quaker mentor, Miss Alice, in Sunday’s premiere of “Christy.”

Christy Huddleston manages to do just that despite being a newly arrived 19-year-old outsider who is burning to reform this poor and remote Smoky Mountains village that seems impregnable to change.

There is something highly appealing about this atmospheric CBS series, based on a popular novel by Catherine Marshall about a young woman who, after a brief stint at college, arrives in Appalachia in November of 1912 to establish a mission school.

Christy (Kellie Martin) is full of hope. But awaiting her is an inadequate one-room schoolhouse and a rag-tag bunch of grubby, shoeless, undisciplined, near-illiterate pupils with old people’s faces. And confronting her are ignorance, superstition, clan feuds and a moonshining populace that considers whiskey stills a birthright.

She’s spiny, though, pushing her educational and moral agenda while finding an ally and possible future romantic interest in a young Protestant preacher (Randall Batinkoff). And surely Cutter Gap’s headstrong young doctor (Steward Finlay-McClennan), who resents her interference in local matters, won’t stay mad at Christy forever.

Filmed in Townsend, Tenn., “Christy” is lush to look at and a distinctive addition to prime time. The surrounding characters don’t have the gap-toothed rawness of those backwoods devils in “Deliverance,” but Martin is a gifted young actress who conveys a pioneer spirit while still giving Christy a fresh, sweet vulnerability. And Tyne Daly is productive in her minimal time on camera as the complex Miss Alice, a likable figure despite continually spitting truisms and other chaws of wisdom.

There are some nice spiritual touches in Patricia Green’s script, meanwhile, and only occasionally does Michael Rhodes’ direction meander.

Christy’s campaign to battle deeply entrenched traditions causes a terrible backlash. She and her modest schoolhouse take a beating, as does your heart when worked over by the drama’s sentimental score and obvious message about the innate nobility of the poor and primitive. Yet this is too nice a series to pick apart. “Christy” may be only a penlight in an abyss, but better that than no light at all.

* “Christy” premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday and then will be seen at 8 p.m. Thursdays on CBS (Channels 2 and 8).