• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 8 hours ago

Fox’s plan to tee up a three-part, six-hour Bible-based miniseries coinciding with the early spring holiday season could be seen as an experiment aimed at determining if there is an audience for religious storytelling in prime time.

The ambitious series -- titled “The Faithful: Women of the Bible” -- premieres with Part One this Sunday night starting at 8 p.m. Eastern and running until 10 p.m., thereby preempting all of Fox’s “Animation Domination” lineup for the night.

Fox’s Sunday-night animation lineup -- currently consisting of “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “American Dad!” -- is a long-running staple for the network.

And yet, the animated shows will be preempted on the following two Sunday nights as well -- March 29 and April 5, Easter Sunday -- a total of three consecutive Sundays.

The air schedule of “The Faithful” coincides with both the Easter and Passover seasons, but the stories told in the series have nothing directly to do with them.

The stories in “The Faithful” all originate in the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament. 

The Passover story is told in Exodus. The Easter story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is told in the New Testament in the Gospel According to Matthew.

The stories in “The Faithful” are not directly connected to those holiday stories, but the figures whose stories are told in the miniseries all had roles to play in the early foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

“The Faithful” tells the biblical stories of five women of the Old Testament starting in 1900 B.C. and the story of Sarah (Minnie Driver, above photo), wife of Abraham.

The other women are Hagar (Natacha Karam), Sarah’s servant, who gave birth to Ishmael, one of the patriarchs of Islam; Rebekah (Alexa Davalos), wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau; and sisters Leah (Millie Brady) and Rachel (Blu Hunt), first and second wives of Jacob, respectively.

This year, the eight-day celebration of Passover runs from the evening of Wednesday, April 1, until the evening of Thursday, April 9.

Easter is on Sunday, April 5, preceded by Palm Sunday on March 29 and Good Friday on April 3.

After watching the first installment of “The Faithful,” the TV Blog wholeheartedly recommends it to anyone who is looking for something different to watch on TV that is not the usual “entertainment” of gore, sex and four-letter words.

This is the heart of the experiment, of course. Specifically, will modern-day audiences gravitate toward a lengthy Bible-based miniseries on network TV?

For those who do, “The Faithful: Women of the Bible” will be a godsend this holiday season.

“The Faithful: Women of the Bible” airs in three parts on three consecutive Sundays - March 22, March 29 and April 5 - at 8-10 p.m. Eastern on Fox.