Spin City

Show name	Spin City
Caption	The original intertitle, as seen during season one (1996–1997)
Format	Sitcom
Camera	Film; Multiple camera
Runtime	approx. 22 minutes
Creator	Gary David Goldberg Bill Lawrence
Starring	Michael J. Fox (seasons 1–4) Charlie Sheen (seasons 5–6) Heather Locklear (seasons 4–6) Barry Bostwick Richard Kind Michael Boatman Alan Ruck Carla Gugino (early season 1) Connie Britton (seasons 1–4) Alexander Chaplin (seasons 1–4) Victoria Dillard (seasons 1–4) Jennifer Esposito (seasons 2–3) Lana Parrilla (season 5)
Executive producer	Gary David Goldberg (seasons 1–3, 5–6) Michael J. Fox (seasons 1–4) Bill Lawrence (season 3) David S. Rosenthal Andy Cadiff (season 4) Tom Hertz (season 6)
Company	Ubu Productions Lottery Hill Entertainment DreamWorks SKG
Distributor	Paramount Domestic Television (2000–2006) CBS Paramount Domestic Television (2006–2007) CBS Television Distribution (2007–2009) Disney-ABC Domestic Television (2009–present)
Theme music composer	Shelley Palmer (seasons 1 and 4) Danny Pelfrey (seasons 5–6)
Country	United States
Language	English
Network	ABC
First aired
Last aired
Num seasons	6
Num episodes	145
List episodes	List of Spin City episodes
Picture format	480i (SDTV; entire run) 720p (HDTV; season 6)
Status	Cancelled/ended

Spin City is an American sitcom television series that aired from September 17, 1996 until April 30, 2002 on the ABC network. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show was based on a fictional local government running New York City, and originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor of New York. The show was cancelled in 2002 due to low ratings from the 2001–2002 season and a change in target demographics.

In 2000, Paramount Television (which produced Michael J. Fox's earlier sitcom, Family Ties) began syndicating the series to local stations (Paramount parent Viacom would later buy the show's producer DreamWorks). It and successor companies owned distribution rights until 2009, when DreamWorks became independent again. The syndication rights are held by ABC's syndication arm, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures began distributing DreamWorks live-action films in 2009. However, the Paramount Television logo tag remains to be shown after the end credits of reruns of the series.

Premise

The series focuses on the Mayor of New York City, Randall Winston (Barry Bostwick), and his staff as they run the city—although the main person in charge is Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty (Michael J. Fox). Mike is excellent at his job, dealing with spin and lies, but not so good with his personal life, which he often neglects. Other members of staff at City Hall include press secretary Paul Lassiter (Richard Kind), the office cheapskate, suck-up, and noted coward, who has a habit of being a loudmouth and is often kept in the dark about things; chief of staff Stuart Bondek (Alan Ruck), who loves the ladies and is often very sexist; and head of minority affairs Carter Heywood (Michael Boatman), a gay black man with a suicidal dog named Rags. Despite their overwhelming personal differences, Stuart and Carter actually become roommates and best friends. Also on the staff are speech writer James Hobert (Alexander Chaplin), who is easily led and quite naive; Mike's secretary Janelle Cooper (Victoria Dillard); and accountant Nikki Faber (Connie Britton). Janelle later becomes the mayor's secretary and Stacy Paterno (Jennifer Esposito) joins the show as Mike's secretary and Paul's arch-enemy. Together this group helps run City Hall, improve the Mayor's image, and cover for his frequent gaffes--while sorting out their personal lives.

At the start of the series, Mike is dating reporter Ashley Schaffer (Carla Gugino). In early promos for the series, this relationship is shown to be the main premise of the show. After just a few episodes into the series, Gugino decided to leave. The nature of Carter and Stuart's relationship became a running gag during the series. The two ended up becoming so close that their friendship was mocked by others, and their arguments sounded so much like husband and wife that a whole episode was dedicated to the notion that the two argued like a married couple. The two ended up meeting an older duo of best friends (one black and one white) that were virtual twins of Carter and Stuart in terms of personality; when it was discovered that the two older versions had become a couple, it ended up scaring Stuart quite a bit. For his part, Stuart tends to be very possessive of his time with Carter, going so far as to be genuinely jealous when Carter spends more and more time with new campaign manager Caitlin (Heather Locklear) [see below]. In spite of all the jokes and innuendo, they prove to be best friends willing to do anything for both their friends and each other.

During the fourth season, James replaced Stacy, whose absence was never explained; in fact, she was never mentioned again.

The later years

In 1998, Michael J. Fox announced that he had Parkinson's disease. As a result, a new character, Caitlin Moore (Heather Locklear) was introduced at the start of the 1999–2000 season to help share Mike's workload. Caitlin was Mayor Winston's campaign manager as he decided to run for Senator, and there was much friction between Mike and Caitlin about who was in charge of the Mayor. Their relationship, was more complex than a simple rivalry and there were hints that it would become more than platonic.

In 2000, as his symptoms worsened, Fox announced that he was leaving the show at the end of the season to spend more time with his family and to raise money for awareness of and research into Parkinson's. His character left City Hall at the end of the show's 4th season, taking the blame for an alleged Mafia link that the Mayor unknowingly had. He later moved to Washington, D.C. as an environmental lobbyist, there meeting a senator named Alex P. Keaton (the name of the character Fox played on Family Ties). ! 11.7 ! 11.2 ! 13.1 ! 12.4 ! 7.1 ! 8.4

Dreamworks has also published two DVD boxes titled "Michael J. Fox – His All Time Favorites" Vols. 1 and 2 in 2003, both containing eleven episodes. All 22 episodes are taken from the four seasons containing Fox, each starting with a brief interview in which he describes what he likes about the episode. In the 2003 interviews, Fox shows symptoms of his ongoing illness. Both DVD boxes contain bonus material with fund-raising TV commercials for Parkinson's Disease research, starring the Spin City cast.

{|class="wikitable" |- ! DVD Name ! Ep # ! Release Date |- | The Complete First Season | style="text-align:center;"|24 | November 4, 2008 |- | The Complete Second Season | style="text-align:center;"|24 | April 28, 2009 |- | The Complete Third Season | style="text-align:center;"|26 | November 3, 2009 |- | The Complete Fourth Season | style="text-align:center;"|26 | February 15, 2011 |}

See also

List of Spin City episodes

References

External links

Spin City at Yahoo! TV

Category:1990s American television series Category:1996 television series debuts Category:2000s American television series Category:2002 American television series endings Category:American Broadcasting Company network shows Category:American television sitcoms Category:English-language television series Category:Television series by Buena Vista Television Category:Television shows set in New York City Category:Political television series