Spin City - Premise

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. Carter Heywood was seen as a revolution in modern television. As the writer (Orville Lloyd Douglas) noted on his blog GayBlackCanadianman: "Far too often whenever a character is gay on television its always a white person. In North America gayness equals whiteness and gay black men are displaced due to race, gender, and sexual orientation. Finally, the writers and producers of Spin City got it right. Carter was a well adjusted young black man he wasn't on the down low, he also wasn’t confused or conflicted about his homosexuality." 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 one point in development, the show was simply called "Spin." 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) . 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. This too was considered an important moment in television history: "I love the fact that the writers of Spin City explored the fact that gay men and heterosexual men can be friends. The straight man doesn’t have to worry that the gay man might hit on him."

During the fourth season, Stacy was replaced by James. Her absence was never explained, nor was she mentioned again after James took over her duties.