When teen Sarah is forced to babysit her half-brother Toby, she summons Jareth the Goblin King to take him away. When he is actually kidnapped, Sarah is given just thirteen hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue him.
On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal and restore order to his world, before the grotesque race of Skeksis find and use the crystal for evil.
After the success of the live 1957 Cinderella on CBS (with Julie Andrews), the network decided to produce another television version. The new script hewed closer to the traditional tale, although nearly all of the original songs were retained and performed in their original settings. Added to the Rodgers and Hammerstein score was "Loneliness of Evening", which had been composed for South Pacific but not used.