Gorgeous but Fragmented ‘Arabian’ Tales
Talk about a wife who never shuts up.
The lovely mouth that drives ABC’s new “Arabian Nights” is Scheherazade (Mili Avital). She’s the new bride of the mad, tormented young sultan of Baghdad (Dougray Scott), who, after being betrayed by his first sultana, plans to preemptively murder No. 2, fearing she’ll be against him too.
Knowing this, Scheherazade talks for her life, staving off her execution by spinning intoxicating, suspenseful tales that keep the sultan--a sucker for a good story--on the edge of his satin cushion. After all, how can he murder her before she reveals how everything turns out for Aladdin?
It’s these loosely connected fables that form the basis of this gorgeous but uneven two-parter set in Middle East of antiquity, yet another lavish legend from Robert Halmi Sr.’s Hallmark Productions, which for several years has been the sahib of prime-time ratings sweeps spectacles, most of them expensively made caca.
“Arabian Nights,” at least, has much more going for it than most Hallmark productions. That includes the hugely violent “Jason and the Argonauts” that pours blood and entrails on NBC starting May 7.
Those Argonaut guys are first-rate. Yet the noble and heroic Jason, as leadenly played by boyish Jason London, is a real clunker and no one to build a couple of nights around, even if he does find the Golden Fleece, get it on with Medea and give his ruthless Uncle Pelias a stabbing comeuppance.
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But that’s next month’s myth. Sunday’s features better performances in key roles and is about as beautiful as TV gets, tossing its big-budget glitter and magic dust all across the screen on behalf of a script by Halmi regular Peter Barnes that has the sultan and Scheherazade operating on a parallel track with the stories she tantalizingly dribbles out, at times with ample doses of humor.
In one of these, the accidental death of a sultan’s favorite funny man, a sort of Borscht Belt jester named BacBac, triggers a panic when everyone fears being blamed for his demise. There are also laughs elsewhere, as when the pudgy Ring Genie (John Leguizamo) arrives with a big pouf and asks: “What color was my smoke? Was it blue?”
Coached by a master storyteller (Alan Bates), Scheherazade captivates her sultan also with tales about Ali Baba (Rufus Sewell), Aladdin (Jason Scott Lee) and other familiar characters who have been featured in a spate of theatrical movies too.
Unfortunately, director Steve Barron is unable to sustain the good moments and loping pace, and ultimately this camel refuses to budge. The teleplay’s fragmented dual-narrative format grows tiresome and at times very confusing, to the extent that “Arabian Nights” seems undecided on what story it most wants to tell.
That’s something Scheherazade herself would never allow.
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* “Arabian Nights” airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and Monday at 9 p.m. on ABC. The network has rated it TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14 with a special advisory for violence).