

Season 1 • Episode 102
LatestThe series begins with history teacher Nima Zande-Karimi (Siamak Ansari) realizing that his extensive research on Persian and world history is of little use to financing his day-to-day life. He is about to leave Tehran for good to go back to his hometown by the name of Darab, when he comes across young university student Roya Atabaki (Sahar Jafari-Jozani) who is researching for her final year dissertation, which is regarding the period 1198–1203, that is said to be a period of turmoil for Iran's ruling elite. Such turmoil that, very few books are available on that period for Roya's research. It is then that Nima receives an anonymous telephone call, which leads him to Niavaran Palace (currently a museum), where he is told to have a coffee and wait. The coffee (which is bitter) is ready and he duly drinks it, his sight becomes hazy, and when he manages to refocus he is in the year 1201 (1822 AD), and the story develops therein.
Acting
Siamak Ansari's dual performance: pathetic professor and bumbling courtier
Writing
Modiri's anachronistic slang collision with 19th-century Qajar court
Production
Niavaran Palace as authentic time machine setting
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 1198–1203 period was genuinely obscure in Iranian historiography; Modiri essentially invented a blank canvas for satire. The show became a phenomenon for making 'boring' history dangerously watchable.
Mehran Modiri reportedly drank actual bitter coffee on set for authenticity in time-travel scenes, and later banned it from his life entirely. Method acting for comedy is rare.