One worries about Scheherazade. In agreeing to marry a sultan whose first wife betrayed him, the lady knows that he plans to kill her after one night of wedlock. So she invents a ploy: She begins telling him a very long story, "A Tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves."

Ali Baba is a poor man who gains access to a cave of riches by uttering "Open Sesame." But once rich, he is hunted by the cave's former owners, the 40 thieves. Can he outwit so many men?

Scheherazade regales Sultan Schahriar with this tale until daylight, when she explains that she can tell her tales only at night. Schahriar is enraged that he must wait for the outcome. But her life is spared -- for now.

ABC's "Arabian Nights" starts Sunday at 8 and continues Monday at 9. In addition to the tale of Ali Baba, played by Rufus Sewell, it overflows with stories from the childhood favorite "The Thousand and One Nights."

There is the comic story of Bacbac, the court jester whose inconvenient death leads his body to be passed around in crazy scenarios before a trial determines who killed him.

Bacbac's funeral leads to the introduction of the young pickpocket Aladdin, played by Jason Scott Lee. Aladdin finds his wishes granted when he releases the genie in the lamp, played by John Leguizamo. But just as trouble arrives to darken Aladdin's fate, Scheherazade stops talking -- it is daylight and Schahriar demands more. "Wait till tomorrow night," she says. And that is how the Sunday night installment ends. We too must tune in Monday for more.

Cleverly done, "Arabian Nights" is packed with beautiful costumes and a classy cast that includes Mili Avital as Scheherazade, Dougray Scott as Sultan Schahriar, James Frain as his bad-seed brother, Alan Bates as the storyteller in the marketplace, Tcheky Karyo as the evil Black Coda and violinist Vanessa Mae as Aladdin's love interest, Princess Zobeide.

It is another project from the prolific producer Robert Halmi, who has been flooding TV with movies and miniseries lately, including NBC's "The 10th Kingdom" and TNT's "Don Quixote," both this season.

In "Arabian Nights," Halmi introduces American viewers to Avital, an Israeli actress who has worked on stage and large screen. As Scheherazade, she was at the center of the filming in the Middle East early this year.

"This is so special and something that adults and kids can enjoy," she said. "It has special effects but also a very ancient flavor to it."

Avital has been living in the United States for several years, mostly in New York. Her film work has included "Stargate" in 1994 and "Kissing a Fool" in 1998. When she made the latter, she met "Friends" actor David Schwimmer, and the two have been dating for nearly three years, she said. "We've been very smart about keeping it [private]."

Avital's heritage should have made playing a Middle Easterner easy. Yet she labored over her diction and worked with a vocal coach to find the right accent.

"It was a very special dialect that we went for," she explained. "The other actors were all British and they wanted a timeless accent but with a Mediterranean sound. It is not a British story -- it's an Arabic story." And Avital said she consciously strove for authenticity, pronouncing a throaty "h" in Mohammed, for example.

"That was really important," said director Steve Barron. "Thankfully for her Israeli roots, all I had to do was to keep reminding her to make it come from the Mediterranean, not from New York."

Barron praised her work: "The stories with that rounded accent became so much stronger and belonged to her," he said. "You had to believe that this girl was telling stories to save her life. And that this man was buying them, and to get the audience to as well. So the voice is a major part of this. It's vital."

"Arabian Nights" is about "real people, and a real culture," added Avital. "We wanted to respect the originality of the story."

That meant huge attention to detail. Foremost were the costumes -- 4,750 of them designed by an Italian who works in the opera.

"They flew in fabrics from Paris or wherever," said Avital. "Whatever they needed really. I was completely drenched in silk all day long."

Barron, who directed "Merlin" for Halmi in 1998, said both tales have elements of magic and monsters, but were totally different to make.

"We were able to be more cinematic than with 'Merlin.' We shot it all in the Middle East and in Turkey," he said. "And that gave us more production value than with England."

So for crowd scenes, Halmi was able to hire more extras, and money in general went farther. But it was physically more demanding, said Barron, "because of not having a real movie-making society behind you. In Turkey and Morocco and Jordan -- we filmed there as well -- those are three countries that are pretty limited in terms of film production. You have to bring a lot of people over. There are benefits on the screen, but it's definitely a more demanding way of doing it -- getting a large crane up a mountain and that sort of thing."

It was 16 weeks of hard labor.

But the time was lightened by the energy of comic-actor John Leguizamo, who plays both the genie in the lamp and a second, cheerier one.

"He was a joy and somebody I've always wanted to work with," said Barron. "When we got him involved, the script wasn't finished so we were designing the look of the genie with the curse across the face. We had a very good artist's impression of his face before [Leguizamo] accepted the job. He had a lot of other offers and I think he was going to say no until he got the artist's rendition."

In the miniseries, Leguizamo becomes a scary creation with a black goatee and face paint.

He also suggested some lines -- 60 pages' worth -- "because his comedic side would come out," said Barron.

It does, especially during the battle between the two genies, where he plays both. And parts of the dialogue Leguizamo submitted for his roles made the final cut, said Barron.

Thanks to Rai for sharing this!