GenreMiniseriesFantasyCostume drama Directed bySteve Barron Produced byDyson Lovell Screenplay byPeter Barnes Based onThe Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night by Sir Richard Francis Burton StarringMili AvitalDougray Scott Music byRichard Harvey CinematographyRemi Adefarasin CountryUnited States/United Kingdom LanguageEnglish Original channelABC/BBC Original runApril 30, 2000 -- May 1, 2000 Running time175 minutes The series starts in Baghdad at an undetermined time (since the story teller seems to live during the 8th century, but the stories that is told takes place during the era of muskets, Englishmen, and queue-era Chinese hairstyles, which means it takes place in the 17th century at the earliest). The Sultan Shahryar (Dougray Scott) has gone mad after accidentally killing his wife during a failed coup d'état, which she had planned with Shahryar's brother Schahzenan (James Frain). In his madness, Shahryar believes that all women now want to kill him, but the law states that the Sultan must be married again or the throne will be passed to his brother. Shahryar therefore orders Grand Vizier Ja'Far (Jim Carter) to bring him a harem girl to marry and then have executed the next day.Synopsis:In order to prevent this, the Grand Vizier's clever daughter, Scheherazade (Mili Avital), decides to marry the Sultan herself. Scheherazade (a childhood friend of the Sultan who has secretly fallen in love with him) has a plan to prevent her execution and at the same time cure the Sultan of his madness. With the help of some tutoring from a bazaar storyteller (Alan Bates), Scheherazade tells the Sultan a story every night, stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger and refusing to continue until dusk. Shahryar must therefore let Scheherazade live for another day in order to hear the rest of the story. Cunningly, Scheherazade has hidden a moral within every story, to bring the Sultan out of his madness.Meanwhile, Schahzenan (Shahryar's brother) hears about the Sultan's madness and that he is unable to execute Scheherazade. Perceiving this as weakness, Schahzenan leads his army to Baghdad in an attempt to take the throne by force. However, by the time Schahzenan's army reaches the city, Scheherazade's plan has worked. As a result of her stories, Shahryar has overcome his madness and has fallen in love with Scheherazade. Using elements from the stories, Shahryar is able to defeat his brother's army. At the end of the battle, it is revealed that all that had been seen was a story itself, told by Scheherazade to her children. The series ends with Scheherazade promising to tell her children another story tomorrow night.