BibleMan: Divided We Fall

Today, I’m continuing my week-long marathon of the Bibleman franchise as part of Secular Students Week. If you make a donation to the Secular Student Alliance this week, and I’ll cover a movie of your choice.

“Divided We Fall” was originally released in March of 2004, and was the eleventh entry into “The Bibleman Adventure,” which was the second incarnation of the franchise after the short-lived “The Bibleman Show.”

“Divided We Fall” was produced and directed by former sitcom star Willie Aames, who once again takes top billing as the central hero, Bibleman. This episode was written by Brady Williams, the actor who plays Bibleman’s sidekick, Cypher.

The villain of “Divided We Fall” is played by Jef Scott, who appears yet again under the moniker of “The Wacky Protestor,” a character who was previously defeated in “A Light In The Darkness.” The evil computer, L.U.C.I., also makes an appearance as his quasi-henchman.

Bibleman’s allies in “Divided We Fall” are his long-time sidekick, Cypher, his supercomputer, U.N.I.C.E., and Biblegirl, who is still played by Heather Hazelwood/McSmith from “Jesus Our Savior” and “A Light In The Darkness.”

The story of “Divided We Fall” picks up when the Wacky Protester tries to use the horrifying (and apparently popular) children’s show “Mr. Funky’s Wild Time” to corrupt children across the nation into becoming rebellious and disobedient. Likewise, he plans to sew discord within Bibleman’s team by using L.U.C.I to pose as U.N.I.C.E. for the purpose of spreading misinformation between them. Interestingly, that sounds really similar to “Silencing the Gossip Queen,” though that episode focuses on causing tensions between annoying children as opposed to annoying adults.

The Protester’s plan hinges on the assumption that Bibleman, Biblegirl, and Cypher won’t actually talk to each other like adults at any point, and prefer being passive aggressive and in-communicative indefinitely.  Of course, it initially works because they are essentially giant babies (complete with a slap fight between Cypher and Bibleman), but they do eventually figure things out and foil his plan.

Of course, there is another big flaw in the Protester’s plan: the fact that he bothered to go after Bibleman at all. If he hadn’t hacked into U.N.I.C.E., the team would never have been tipped off as to his plan for “Mr. Funky’s Wild Time,” and he would have gotten away with it. I mean, how exactly was Bibleman going to predict his plan of attack on this television show anyway? If Protester had just hacked into the show and not been obsessively preoccupied with the bible team, he would have a legion of mindless children at his command…or something like that. Y’know, that part of the plan doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. Aren’t children pretty unruly and rebellious anyway? Was his plan to send a bunch of children into puberty early?

The Wacky Protester finally gets an explosive death in “Divided We Fall,” after taking a series of deflected laser blasts from the bible team. It is actually a bit underwhelming for a Bibleman villain death, but it is still pretty brutal for a humanoid to explode into pixels I suppose.

“Divided We Fall” marked Willie Aames’s last appearance as BibleMan, and there is even an awkward reference to Bibleman’s age and potential retirement in the episode. I’m not sure what the situation was in regards to his departure from the show, but I do know it at least had something to do with a change of publisher and the relaunch of the series as “Bibleman: PowerSource,” which occurs following the next episode (“A Fight for Faith”).

Overall, this episode is far from one of the worst in the series, and certainly benefits from the presence of the Wacky Protestor. However, there aren’t any goofy potions or spells, which is always one of the more goofy qualities of the show. There is plenty of impossible hacking magic, terrible acting, and incompetence from the bible team to go around, though. This is another one that isn’t towards the top of my list, but one could do much worse for an adventure with Bibleman.