Bibleman: A Fight For Faith

Review by Heckler King

Wacky Protestor, the lamest supervillain of all time, hatches his most diabolical scheme yet. Only the faithful power of Bibleman can stop him, but Miles Peterson has hung up his cape! Fortunately, some new blood has been found to take up the mantle, and the new Bibleman battles Wacky Protestor in easily the most boring Fight for Faith yet.

Josh Carpenter aka Bibleman (Robert Schlipp)
Miles Peterson (Willie Aames)
Cypher (Brady Williams)
Biblegirl (Heather McSmith)
Wacky Protestor (Jef Scott)
UNICE (?)
LUCI (?)

Year: 2004
Censorship Rating: Not rated, but aimed at a family audience

We open on the Marek Christian Book Warehouse (Andrea Marek being the co-executive producer. Naming locations after behind the scenes cast members is some kind of running gag for this series, or perhaps just another reason to despair that all of five minutes went into making the script) at 19:20. Kids, read your Bible every day. Three thugs wearing pantyhose on their heads are stealing boxes full of Bibles while they pretend they’re at ballet practice. Now, you need to know that I consider making things up about people’s sexuality beneath me. This goes double for fictional people. Other members of my generation might find it amusing to get hammered and speculate if He-Man or Bugs Bunny was gay. Not me. I think people who try to decipher the sex lives of characters in kids’ shows don‘t have enough productive things to do. Yet I couldn’t help thinking, as I looked at these morons, of a word that starts with f and ends with g and isn’t fog.

We see an end to the their high stepping when a POV from a pair of computerized goggles is shown, alerting their wearer that this is a robbery in progress. Gee, good thing he had those on, otherwise he might have thought those guys with laser guns wearing pantyhose over their heads worked here or something. And par for the course, this POV is covered with an obscuring computerized grid and lines of text laid out over it, both of which are at best meaningless and at worst potentially distracting while you’re fighting for your life against a servant of Satan. It’s just supposed to look cool, yeah, but really, who would ever make eyepieces that do this?

The wearer of the computerized goggles turns out to be Cypher, who climbs over a safety railing, crouches on the corner of the raised walkway he’s creeping along and surveys the situation for a minute, shakes his head in apparent disgust, then climbs back over the railing and continues his stealthy approach. Then for some reason the footage speeds up as he climbs up and stands on the railing (yeah kiddies, using safety railings like a jungle gym is fun!), and espouses, “God says you must not steal! Deuteronomy 5:19!” Yeah, well if they’re stealing Bibles with the intent to destroy them, they probably don’t give two dingo’s kidneys what God says, huh Cypher? “It’s also against the law,” he adds. Well, if they’re in a video series (which previous episodes have gone to pains to show us that the characters know) and are wearing pantyhose over their heads, they probably don’t give two dingo’s kidneys about what the law says either, huh Cypher? For the brains of the outfit you sure are an idiot.

One of the thugs runs up to the second floor to take Cypher out with his laser pistol, but Cypher knocks one of the bolts back and damages it. Thus unarmed against this mighty champion of the faith, the thug makes a cowardly leap into a pile of boxes and appears to knock himself out. Cypher jumps after him, but not before an explosion goes off at the edge of the walkway for no apparent reason. Actually, I lie. It’s so it would look cool as he jumped down. Somebody want to tell me where it came from, though?

We cut to the bad guy lair and see that Wacky Protestor is behind the robbery. Small world, ain’t it? He starts to tell LUCI that he has a new plan to drive kids away from Christianity. “So, you want to convert the kiddies to atheism?” LUCI asks. She has to be told this? He’s tried to drive kids away from Christianity and its principles in all of his schemes, and what about Luxor and all the times he tried to drive people away from teachings of God? Why does she need this confirmed? Oy!

More patient than I’d be with an idiotic, sarcastic not-so-supercomputer, or maybe just relieved to have somebody who’s willing to talk to him, Protestor replies, “That’s correct. The belief that there is no God, no faith, no hope, or no future.” Hmm, I don’t think that’s quite right, but this is series is all about how nifty Christianity is, and since it’s meant for kids they’re required by law to get their point across by making any other viewpoints that pop up look bad.

Protestor lays out the first stage of this episode’s diabolical plot. Basically, he’s invented a ray beam [UnSub: which I found out elsewhere was called a neuroiconoclasticskeptisiser, which I think is almost clever enough to be funny] that will make kids stop expressing their faith in God, which will make them susceptible to the next stage of his evil scheme to drive down the religious ratios of this little town. With that out of the way, we cut back to Cypher, who is fighting the other thugs as they fire their laser guns at him. Well, bounce their lasers off of his wrist guards, anyway. Oh, I’m so sorry, I mean bounce their lasers off of his Shields of Faith. One thug is hit, and disintegrates into particles of light. Whoa! They just killed a guy! Not one of those super villain demon guys, an actual human being! Or maybe not, as his buddy decides better of taking on Cypher alone and runs away, vanishing in a puff of green smoke with a fart sound. Were they supposed to be demons too? I don’t know, but I wish the show would tell me. Whether the Bible’s against it or not, I’m not too comfortable with superheroes who take human lives trying to educate my kids, not even if it’s supposed to be a result of their own evil actions being turned against them.

Having seen off the malcontents, Cypher asks, “UNICE, do you have me tracked?” into a wrist computer thinger. Is there some reason she wouldn’t track the BibleTeamers’ locations in the field automatically, in case one gets in trouble so she knows where to send help? And there‘s all the times in the past Bibleman told his sidekick to track him when he left the cave, implying he has to do that to be tracked. Did Cypher forget whether he asked UNICE to track him? “I just stopped three men who were attempting to steal Bibles.” Considering that the good guys always hear about emergencies through UNICE, and how he’d have to have had her armor him up before coming here, it’s pretty likely she knows the nature of the disturbance already, Einstein. Oh, and I guess that means they were supposed to be real people after all. Great, you’ve got my support all the way, BibleTeam.

And here comes our opening spiel. As this is the episode where a new hero dons the Full Armor of God, it’s a bit different than the one I and Senor Shumate reviewed before. “In the year 2004, and after serving the Lord for ten years, Miles Peterson stepped down. Chosen was a man who served Jesus Christ ever since he was a child. His name is Josh Carpenter.” Not exactly providing a smooth introduction for newcomers to the series. Miles Peterson stepped down from what? And Josh Carpenter was chosen for what? No, it isn’t that hard to figure out the answers, but it’s still plenty awkward to listen to it.

Eaglegate Manor, the next day. “Incoming transmission from Mr. Theophilus??” asks a caption window. Actually, I couldn’t tell if those were supposed to be exclamation points or question marks, so I guessed. I don’t get the point of this caption, though. Even Cypher and Biblegirl don’t know who Mr. Theophilus is prior to this scene, so how is the name supposed to mean anything to us?

Cypher’s cell phone rings, and it’s Miles, who, as helpfully spelled out during the opening credits, is the ex-Bibleman. Willie Aames seems to have completely cut ties to his brain child; Mrs. Bibleman no longer voices the computers (the new voice actor is uncredited), and Willie didn’t even come back for a split screen or voice over cameo to have the other half of this conversation. The guy couldn’t take an hour out of his schedule to personally say his goodbyes to the series that he’d poured his heart and soul into for the last ten years, hoping to change people’s lives? Already I’m worried about how much effort was realized to make this episode come true. Okay, I was worried before I even put the DVD in. The crux of it all is that Miles is enjoying his retirement, and that an important transmission about the future of the BibleTeam is coming in soon. Good thing Miles called and told him that, or they might have had to do something thoughtful and entertaining to eat up those twenty seconds.

[UnSub's Aside: Such a smooooth transition between the old and new Bibleman occurs here that I can only think that Willie Aames got booted off his own series. This could be for any number of reasons and may not have anything to do with Aames at all, but it would certainly suck to be removed so suddenly from a series that you'd poured your heart into for a decade. Heck, at the very least you'd think they could spend five minutes on a 'I'm retiring, here's the new Bibleman and goodbye scene', but obviously not.

I should say that this is just an assumption and I have no information about what actually happened. A quick googling turned up this article which says that Aames left to spend more time with his family, which has got to be the oldest non-reason in the PR book for making a sudden exit from the public eye. Also, it appears that the new Bibleman actor, Robert Schlipp, was the guy who did the Bibleman Live performances before getting the full gig.]

Anyway, UNICE opens up the aforementioned transmission, from the aforementioned Mr. Theophilus, who turns out to be the HHIC (Head Honcho In Charge. Ha ha ha) of the board of directors that backs the BibleTeam. Cypher and Biblegirl didn’t know there was a board of directors backing the team, although if I were in a superhero team I at least would wonder who was paying for everything. But I will extend the series some credit for finally making some amount of effort to explain how Miles became Bibleman and who provides all of their resources, even though it only took them ten years. I thought it was kind of weird that the source of the call was “unidentifiable,” though. Don’t the BibleTeam’s backers want to keep tabs on what they’re up to? Wouldn’t they have UNICE send them reports on how battles go and if they run up against an enemy they might need specialized or upgraded equipment to deal with and things like that? How would that be possible if UNICE doesn’t know where they’re located and thus where to send the information? Or do they just provide the base, the world’s smartest computer, the shiny suits, and let the BibleTeam do whatever they want with them? You wouldn’t think so, especially since Theophilus states that his organization’s primary purpose is to “support AND OVERSEE the Bible Adventure Team.”

Theophilus (Jef Scott, also the Wacky Protestor) is a man with a fake mustache, a stereotypical stuffy scholarly voice, and wearing a pair of those oversized novelty glasses you buy at joke stores. While he talks to them he does comical head-of-board-of-directors kind of things like wave off calls from the White House and have a guy bring his cat over so he can inattentively give it a pat on the head while he tells Cypher and Lia about Josh Carpenter, their new teammate, and that their backers consist of “three private investors, two physicists, five engineers (sung like a lyric from the Twelve Days of Christmas, ha ha ha), three theologians, two psychologists, two pastors and seven janitors.” That doesn’t sound like an organization big enough to need a board of directors to me, but what do I know about sponsoring a superhero team? Then again, this support organization is just another example of this series’ tight consistency. In the couple early episodes I saw, it seemed as if Miles had retained his fortune and channeled it into funding his activities as Bibleman, and that was what paid for everything. Now we’re getting told that it was backed by a relatively large organization with private investors and a board of directors. Ten years is a long time, yeah, but it still makes you look bad if you mix up your series’ postulates. Or did Theophilus start the Miles Peterson Foundation?

“If you don’t mind me asking sir, where did you find him? Is he ex-military? Special Forces? CIA?” Cypher inquires about their new teammate. “That is not important,” comes the reply, probably because the answer is that they found him in the audience at a Bibleman Live show. “Evil is ever increasing,” Theophilus goes on, and tells them that they’re getting a team physical trainer to “bump up their training to the next level” and having a press conference to announce the new Bibleman. Wanting to know a little bit more about their new teammate’s background, Biblegirl has UNICE bring up Josh’s list of credentials. This she does by levitating a CD in a bubble into the air (?!), which BG then loads into a little plastic tray. This doesn’t seem that efficient to me, as you’d think UNICE could just call up the data on her own, but I’ve spent more than enough energy talking about the poor portrayal of sentient supercomputers in this show in other reviews.

Josh’s secret Who’s Who superhero profile reads like this:

Age: Classified
Education: Degrees in theology and administration of justice.
Special skills: Martial arts, self defense, and cooking.
Work history: Children’s pastor, counselor, security guard at Toys R Us.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m convinced already. Defend me and my loved ones from the slavering hordes of Satan, Joshy! Or from greasepaint-faced geeks in costumes who spend all their time picking on Bible school students, anyway. Cypher and Lia are impressed as well, and go off to meet him. Which again will make me despair about how much effort they really put into this when we see them again. Taking a minute out, I wondered at the point of that caption before this scene. Now I wonder about the point of the whole scene. Before the opening credits, we learned that Miles Peterson retired as Bibleman, and Josh Carpenter has stepped up to the plate to take his place. In the last scene, we learned the exact same thing only at greater length. Yes, they spent upwards of five minutes of run time reiterating something they told us already in ten seconds before the theme song. Calling it padding doesn’t come close.

For now, we cut back to Wacky Protestor’s fiendish lair where we discover the second phase of his plan (and realize that with those flashing neon lights in the background they probably don‘t care about bringing God to epileptics): he’s found a way to use magic paint (or something) to create a portal into a cartoon-like dimension where he’ll send all the Bible school students of this one little town so that they won’t grow up to spread their accursed faith to the next generation. That fiend. I now know the true meaning of evil. Look, I wouldn’t want my children to be banished to some other dimension for all eternity, but if these guys are really trying to do away with Christianity, they need to aim higher than one Sunday school class. Not that the budget would allow any such scope. Oh, and they make the unfortunate mistake of comparing Protestor’s cartoon world to the Matrix, reminding the viewer that they could be watching something which is A LOT better than this. From everything I’m able to see about the cartoon world, though, it’s really not that much like the Matrix, since it’s a place you physically enter and interact with, instead of what amounts to the biggest online role playing game ever.

Back to the good guy mansion, where Biblegirl is complaining about how rough their workout with the trainer was. Oh, and Josh (Pastor Robert T. Schlipp) is with them now. Remember how I mentioned I was despairing about the effort that went into this when they went to meet Josh? Well, now you can see what I mean. Why did they skip doing a scene where the rest of the team has their first meeting with Josh? Imagine Star Wars if we skipped the scene in the bar where Luke and Han Solo first met, so we never got to ease our way into learning what a sarcastic and hard-bitten, but dangerous when pushed, guy Han is. That’s the feeling I had when I saw this and realized they had met Josh, but had denied letting us meet Josh. The Bibleman series seems to have something major against sparing time to introduce people.

This scene tries to fill in for that, but falls flat on its face. Lia introduces Josh and UNICE, “UNICE, this is Josh Carpenter, the new Bibleman.” UNICE would know that already, you idiot. She didn’t just watch you watch Theophilus’ call or call up Josh’s file, she’s the one who freaking relayed the call and displayed his background file. Cypher throws some dialogue around about how amazing UNICE is and how advanced their sensory and communications set-up is. “This is amazing, I’ve never seen anything like this!” gushes Josh.

Josh is daunted, saying he‘s studied law (which, as I recall, says people are allowed to have different religions or even no religion at all if that‘s their bag, so Josh probably won’t get much use out of that) and martial arts, but doesn‘t know jack about science or computers. Cypher, truly the definition of “hero support” promises they’ll help him make sense of it all. “It’s just like 1st Corinthians chapter twelve says, we are one body, made up of individuals, with different abilities,” Josh intones. Well, Cypher is supposed to be smart even though he usually acts like a moron, but what’s Biblegirl’s contribution, besides giving the little girls in Sunday school an identification figure? Anyhow, having made on off the cuff Bible reference, Josh is officially sanctioned as the new Bibleman, or something.

[UnSub's Aside: also, note how we have a Bible-MAN for the boys and a Bible-GIRL for the girls? This seems a bit gender biased in favour of males in my opinion. Would there have been anything wrong with calling her Biblewoman, which seems a bit more equal in title to the hero of this series? Another case of the Rule of Feminine Inferiority in play, I think...]

Having a press conference to get to, they beam up to get into their Full Armors of God. Waistbelt of Truth, Breastplate of Righteousness, Shoes of Peace, Shield of Faith, and Helmet of Salvation just like they’ve been doing for the last ten years. Cypher whispers to Josh once all the armor is on, “Sword of the Spirit.” And Josh steps out of the booth intoning, “And the Sword of the Spirit.” Making this strange is that the sword does not appear. The BibleTeam leave to attend the press conference in their costumes, but unarmed. What if Wacky Protestor decides to start trouble during the conference? Will they have to go all the way back to the BibleCave to pick up their gear before they can take him on? Why does the sword have to be mentioned at all if it isn’t going to be used? Or are their weapons kept in their Utility Belts of Truth when not in use? Somehow I don’t believe that giant Super Soaker laser gun of Biblegirl’s would fit in anything she has on. Asking all these questions is probably why I got passed over to be the BibleTeam’s new leader.

Town hall meeting in the next scene, 14:30 hours. “News flash - there’s a new Bibleman.” Is there any point to these captions? Either we know it already or it’s about something we couldn’t possibly know.

Some sort of official addresses a crowd, and you can see the boom mike. “Ladies and gentlemen, because of our distinguished guest, our city is safer. It is a much better place.” Uh oh, redundancy alarms are going off already! And this is wrong, since the new Bibleman just donned the mantle this morning. He has yet to fight any villains or save any people from their clutches. “In fact, church attendance is up, but evil has decreased.” The first factoid seems an odd thing to bring up at a town hall meeting, rather than a church meeting, unless only the local Christians were invited. Which, however, is probably the case (which makes me wonder, what if you’re Jewish or Muslim or whatever? Will Bibleman save you from demons then?). And I thought Theophilus said evil is ever on the rise. “It is my privilege to introduce to you the new Bibleman, and the defenders of the faith, the Bible Adventure Team.” And everyone gives it up for our plastic and spandex-clad heroes as they take the stage. At this point I wondered, is it really a good idea to publicly reveal that a brand new Bibleman is in town? A big part of me says it wouldn’t be advisable to reveal to the thralls of Satan that their chief opponent is a new guy who probably doesn’t have much experience wielding the powers afforded by the Full Armor of God. Then again, it probably doesn’t warrant the fuss I’m making, since you don’t need a higher power watching your back to take down Wacky Protestor. I will spare you the details of the press conference, since I can sum it all up in one sentence. Even though there’s a new Bibleman, he and his friends promise to continue the fight against the forces of evil (the good fight of faith, in fact) in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Wacky Protestor is watching the press conference for some reason and realizes that there is, in fact, a new Bibleman on the prowl. Upset that the heroes keep reinventing themselves (Cypher has shaved his head in addition to getting a new and less stupid mask), Protestor decides he needs a new look too, and garbs himself in some hideous zebra-print polyester and a beret big enough to serve a pizza off of, before naming himself Rotten Guy (pronounced with a French accent). I better give you all a minute to stop laughing. “LUCI, we’re going for a ride. Click it, or ticket!” he exclaims, just so I can draw another Scanranger parallel with this show: don’t make up your own slogans and catchphrases, use other people’s, no matter how lame or stupid they make your characters sound. Then again, that’s probably the whole idea with Wacky Protestor.

LUCI supplies the Endangered Sunday School Students of this episode: Gabriel and Olivia Phillips, “student leaders at vacation Bible school.” Just the sort of aggravatingly…Christian kids people like Wacky Protestor hates, and the perfect victims of his ray beam machine. LUCI suggests he might want to put on some make up or something first, since people will think he’s “an alien or something” with his blue skin. Like he won’t stand out a mile in that outfit he has on anyway. You’re a genius, LUCI. I think Protest - excuse me, Rotten Guy, disguising himself with make up, including painting a mustache on his face, is supposed to be funny. But, um, it isn’t. Instead it just feels like it’s eating up more of that hefty forty-minute running time without moving anything along.

Cut to Family Church, where Gabriel and Olivia’s VBS session is wrapping up for the day with a quiz on what day God created the rest of the universe. “The second day?” reply some kids. “No,” Gabriel responds with a slightly too smug look and tone, and the kids who gave the wrong answer hang their heads in dejection. Something is very wrong with this, if you ask me. When I was in the process of confirmation, I was having trouble remembering stuff like the Apostle’s Creed, but my pastor told me that memorizing it wasn’t as important as understanding what it means and tells us to stand for. I agree with that; what good does knowing the Book of Proverbs or the Lord’s Prayer word for word do you toward becoming a perfect Christian if you don’t get the meaning behind them? It would be like wearing one of those hurricane relief bracelets or signing a petition just because one of your friends asks you too, not because you believe in the cause. Yet not knowing hard Bible facts like what was created during each of the six days makes you a horrible Christian, is what I see in this scene.

We get a sequence of Wacky Protestor riding through the halls of the Family Church on a bike (forty minutes… forty minutes… gotta make it to forty minutes!) while an electric guitar jam is playing, which sounds like it’s trying to remind us of Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” without actually being Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” which would require getting permission and paying royalties. Of course, the last thing this series would tell kids to do is be wild. It’s probably supposed to be symbolic, then, of how this guy who is the supposed antithesis of Christian teachings is riding around to pseudo “Born to be Wild” music.

Protestor, on foot, passes a couple who are sitting down and reading what appears to be a Bibleman comic book. For some reason, Protestor makes an effort to hide his face. Isn’t he supposed to be nigh invisible in his infallible disguise? It actually seems to work very well, as a man comes up and takes him for a father picking up his kids from vacation Bible school. Man, not a lick of this makes any sense. Not Far Away, Gabriel is asked to end the VBS class in a prayer of closure, after which they pour out into the lobby where Protestor is up to no good. He quickly blows the entire point of his disguise when he unloads his stop-expressing-faith-in-God laser, which has a huge sign saying “I heart Evil” on it, in in the middle of a church lobby, and looking through the hole of his artist’s palette (which has a bunch of micro circuitry on the side he’s holding up) to locate Gabriel and Olivia. It’s a good thing all the adults seem to be back in the other room reading Bibleman comics, or this guy would be swallowing his teeth right now.

He blasts them with his evil faith suppressor ray beam, making little clouds of butterflies fly out from the point of impact and the kids stand around with dazed expressions on their faces. “Now, time to change them from the faithful, to the faithless!” Wacky Protestor crows. It seems like that’s happened already, though. As when Protestor asks questions like, “How was your vacation Bible school?” and “You don’t really believe all that stuff about God, and Jesus, and all that Bible bunk, do ya?” he gets responses like, “I don’t remember,” and “I don’t know.” It may just be me, but it doesn’t seem like his laser makes people stop expressing their faith in God, it seems like it anesthetizes the brain. Whatever it does, it makes the Philips kids extremely suggestible, and Protestor has them round up their friends so that he can take them to a place of eternal fun and freedom from God that night.

A bit later, the Bibleteam (remember them?) gets a call for help from Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. I don’t even have to say that their kids are missing, but I guess I just did. Fortunately, UNICE has some extremely convenient surveillance info that makes it extremely easy to track them down. “Surveillance systems have detected the Wacky Protestor in sector 7, 1.5 kilometers east of Family Church. There is also a quantum molecular electromagnetic surge, and there is also a gravitational disturbance there.” Sounds like they were filling in a Mad-Lib. “That location is just up the street from the church!” Biblegirl announces. Nearly a mile is “just up the street?” Now they aren’t checking their measurements. Guys, guys, guys… when you’re campaigning to expand your faith, there is no room for laziness, even on the little things. The little things are what often make or break a production. “A quantum molecular electromagnetic surge with a gravitational disturbance?” Cypher asks, seemingly as flabbergasted as me by how lame that sounds, but he goes on, “That’s a… that’s a doorway into another dimension…” Uh huh… and you run into these a lot so you know that, Cypher? “And I’ll bet that’s where Gabriel, and Olivia, and the rest of the kid are,” Josh further exposits. Wow, and Cypher’s supposed to be the smart one. “We need to go fight for their faith,” Josh says with determination. Eh… shouldn’t they fight for their own faith? It’s their own eternity. I’d rather the Bibleteam freed them from Protestor’s control then let them make their own decision, since no mad science ever compels kids to abandon God in real life.

Protestor/Rotten Guy has set up his portal to his cartoon world, which for some reason is created by the same machine as the faith suppressor beam. Why spend time and money getting their hands on a different prop, am I right? He gets the Philips sibs inside, and…okay, earlier when Protestor was experimenting with his portal, I was wondering if we’d actually get to see the other side, or if they’d be too cheap to share that with us. Now, I wonder if I really should’ve expressed any desire to see what lies beyond the CGI gate. This animated dimension is a 12x6 rectangle floating in a void of psychedelic computer graphic ripples with lots of clip art clowns, flowers and caterpillars moving around doing nothing in it. It’s really appallingly cheap… I can’t tell you how much just in words.

Luckily, before Protestor can usher anymore Bible school kids into his animated gilded cage, the BibleTeam beams down right next to them. “Don’t go in kids, it’s a trap!” Bibleman warns them, whereupon they turn to look in his direction with expressions like obedient zombies, and immediately the kids all run away. Suddenly the point of the faith suppressor beam becomes a bit suspect. Gabriel and Olivia’s friends all came and looked prepared to enter Rotten Guy’s magic portal because the Philips kids told them to, not suspicious at all of how the Philips kids were dazed and not the cheerful, outgoing people they knew, and then the kids ran away when Bibleman told them to. In short, they did what whoever spoke to them last said to do. It doesn’t seem like Protestor really had to go to the trouble of inventing these elaborate machines and other dimensions to make the kids susceptible to his evil wiles after all. What with how sheep-like their obedience is, he could’ve just said to the kids, “Stand behind that cement truck while it’s backing up and I‘ll give you an ice cream cone.”

Okay, I enjoy tearing up stupid superhero stuff, but when something manages to impress me, I try to let anyone reading know about that too. Like now, when Josh shares my disbelief that someone as lame as the Wacky Protestor is supposed to be his arch-nemesis. Kinds of makes you wonder why they’re using him for the third time in a row if that’s how they feel about him, though, as from what I can make of the synopses at the official site, the Bibleman series hasn’t been exactly frugal with its villains in the past. Like in one episode he’d face the Gossip Queen, then in the next the Shadow of Doubt, then the Master of Misery, then Dr. Fear, then El Furiosa… Wacky Protestor is the only villain they’ve ever stuck with for this long. Running out of ideas for antagonists, Bible Scripting Team? Or is free thought a bigger evil than rage, pride and fibbing put together?

The scary thing is, he’s probably been used so many times because he’s popular with the show’s fans.

“Bibleman, what should we do?” asks Biblegirl, which seems wrong to me since Josh is the greenhorn at fighting Satanic villains. “We have to go in there and find Gabriel and Olivia!” Joshy replies. Wow, what enlightened leadership! You must know RedScanner, Josh! Sorry, momentary lapse, but seriously, that exchange where an obvious question is met with an obvious answer like it’s brilliant leadership is right out of the pages of Eiga Sentai Scanranger.

“UNICE is tracking us,” Josh explains to Cypher before heading in, “If you can’t find us, she’ll know where we are.” You know Josh, Cypher’s the old man on the BibleTeam, and he’s the team brainiac who fixes UNICE when she’s broken. I don’t think he needs you explaining to him what your master computer can do during YOUR first day on the job. Why do I notice stuff like this, but not people paid to?

Again, I was somewhat impressed by this series for breaking type when deciding who rescues the kids and who takes on the villain. In previous installments Bibleman has stuck to the rules of most other cheesy action cinema during the battle sequences (the main hero vs. the main villain, the sidekick vs. the sidekick, the girl vs. the girl, you know). I was expecting it to continue to do so and have Josh duel Wacky Protestor while his sidekicks rescue the Philips kids. Instead, Cypher remains behind to battle their nemesis while Bibleman and Girl enter the animated dimension in search of his captives. Perhaps Brady Williams was complaining about not getting enough action. Maybe they figured that as the most seasoned BibleTeamer, he’d be the best choice to handle the fighting until Joshy can learn a thing or two about using that sword. Or perhaps they just thought as a “musician” (among the disc’s bonus features is a “music video” he performs) he was particularly suited to the fight sequence that erupts between him and Protestor, where they sing back and forth about the futility of the other’s cause, gently tap their light sabers together between verses, then show off their dance steps against one another. Bibleman has about the least action-y action I’ve ever seen. Hmmm, even when I praise this show, I bash it. Ultimately realizing that he is outmatched by Cypher’s Tap Dancing of Peace, Wacky Protestor (who realized the Rotten Guy thing was kind of lame and went back to his old identity) retreats back to his lair.

From there, he can safely gloat and mock Bibleman (who has become a two-dimensional figure inside this dimension… wait a minute, actually…), because in there, “there’s no God to help you!” Heroically ignoring Protestor’s cruel barbs, Bibleman remarks, “We have to find the children!” No really, is that what you guys are doing in there? I thought Biblegirl had dropped a contact. Cypher, for all his brains not realizing maybe somebody should stay and guard the portal generation machine so that his friends and the kids aren’t trapped forever, enters the portal as well. We waste more time as a Clutch Cargo stuffed animal regales the Philips kids with their freedom here, no rules, no homework, no bedtime, no meaningful scenes…

Protestor again reminds the Bibledopes that there’s no God in his evil cartoon dimension to help them, and Cypher, who’s reconnoitered with his teammates, predictably replies, “Protestor, God is omni-present! That means he’s everywhere! Psalm 139:7 says ‘where can I go to get away from your spirit? Where can I run from you? The answer is, nowhere.’ ” After Josh throws some more “God is with the Good but against the Wicked” stuff at Protestor, the villain replies with even more predictable, “you can save the kids or you can save yourselves” stuff. Man, this so plodding it makes the plot of Manos seem energetic.

The BibleTeamers pray, and the power of God or something restores them to three dimensions. This doesn’t achieve much that I can see, and Josh then has Biblegirl fire through a window in front them so that her tiny blasts come out in Protestor’s lair, and I definitely don’t see what this is supposed to achieve besides probably making Protestor decide to stop toying with them and trap them all in the other dimension for all time.

I’m really getting sick of this sluggish plot - it’s really just ungodly how slow the climax of the episode is moving - so I’ll cut it short: the BibleTeam find the kids, easily convince them to leave because God is neat-o keen and loves them even when they turn their backs on Him (which has got to be the most forced revelation out of all the kids the Bibleteam has helped over the years), Cypher and Bibleman have a not fight with some very inanimate clip art bees, and there's a race against time as they try to escape the cartoon dimension as Protestor starts a countdown to shut the portal and we have no way of telling where Bibleman and Cypher are in relation to the door, but of course they make it out in time. Wacky Protestor is trapped in a prison of his own making when he goes through the portal just as it closes because he dropped his paint brush inside. What was he going to do with that anyway? “He should’ve stuck with crayons. They’re fun, and non-toxic,” Josh wittily quips once Protestor is out of their hair until the next episode, and sounding like he‘s about to fall asleep.

The kids are safely delivered home, but you can only see that actually happening in a deleted scene with lots of praying. Yes, they actually cut a scene with praying. Josh is a bit overwhelmed by the week’s events, but showing that he is the true Bibleman, he makes an indecipherable Bible quote just like Miles before him: “It’s just like 2nd Timothy 2:13 says, ‘when we lose faith, God is still faithful, because he cannot be false to himself.”

Cypher makes a komical remark about how cool Protestor’s world was, but it would be cooler if it was a Christian dimension. “That’s called Heaven, Cypher,” Josh comically responds. Oh man, I don’t know if I can take how funny this show is.

As with any preachy superhero show, Bibleman ends with a sermonette about how to cope with the kind of trouble faced by Our Heroes in today’s episode. Since being lured into cartoon dimensions is not something many of us regularly have to face, instead it’s about how Jesus wants to be our friend, and Josh teaches us a prayer to ask Jesus into our hearts. I’m a new man after this, BibleTeam. So long, Joshy. Here’s to a long and fruitful career as Man of Bible.

If anything, this episode promises that the tenure of the new Bibleman is going to be even more snooze-inducing and less action-packed. It might not have had edge of your seat action or dynamic writing under Willie, but he at least seemed like he really wanted to be there, that he was into the part he played and the difference he made. That, and he had something of an acting background. Phoning in his performance doesn't begin to describe Schlipp's portrayal of the champion of Evangelism. I'm sure the guy is a million times more devout than I could ever be, but he still looks like he's trying to figure out what in the heck he's supposed to be doing and shaking off a bottle of Nyquil in every scene.

Not that the crummy script helped any. If I were going to introduce a new hero into my action series, I'd do it in some way that involves that word - action. This showing up after a workout and totally skipping introductions wouldn't fly either. I'd have Cypher and Biblegirl rising up to stop Protestor's scheme on their own, but being trapped in some trap he's devised. Then at the last minute, a new figure enters the fray, and is able to save them because Protestor's never encountered them before and has no idea how to deal with them; Josh, of course. It might sound cliche, but tell me it wouldn't be better than what they did, where we're told what kind of person he is by reading his personnel file instead of seeing for ourselves, and they waste a quarter of the run time doing that and having him attend a press conference. You don't give a guy armor and a light saber to spend your runtime having him go to press conferences, people!

The torch has been passed, but Schlipp stumbled picking it up. Time alone will tell if he manages to fill Willie’s Shoes of Peace and bring back the camp classic we love to hate.

Bibleman is an original creation, so has no direct comic-related source (although there does appear to be an official "Bibleman" comic by this point in the series). How well it shows the teachings of the Bible... well, that's up for you to decide.

I'm sure Schlipp's been giving it his all as the new Avenger of Evangelism, but you're not going to find one single thing in this episode that can be called attention-grabbing. It's barely even good for a round of MSTing with the family.

One point right off the bat for the little humor that couldn't in the Rotten Guy bits, the sing-fighting scene, and greenhorn Josh lecturing his most senior and brainiest teammate on the capabilities of their technology, and two more for the budget-breaking cartoon dimension, for a grand total of three. At least it's good for crushing your suspension of disbelief.

Date of review: 09 December 2005