ABC's Forgotten 145-Episode Sitcom Is A Must-Watch For Its Cast Alone

Published Aug 29, 2026, 7:57 PM EDT

Emboldened by the success of The Office, the creators of Parks and Recreation managed to make the bureaucracy of local government into a barrel of laughs in the classic 2010s sitcom. Similarly, the fact that Abbot Elementary’s setting is an overcrowded, underfunded public school doesn’t stop the sitcom from being one of the sunniest and funniest shows on television in the 2020s. The classic comedy Scrubs took this approach even further, mining mirth out of the inherent drama and trauma of hospital work.

However, before Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence’s best-known show premiered in 2001, the writer had already managed to make a similarly seemingly serious workplace into a hub of comedy in the mid 1990s. The workplace sitcom Spin City focused on local government, with star Michael J. Fox playing the Deputy Mayor of New York City, Mike Flaherty. While Flaherty was technically second in command to Barry Bostwick’s Mayor Randall Winston, it was clear that the show’s spin doctor was the true star of the series.

Michael J. Fox Wasn't The Only Notable Star In ABC's Spin City

However, like Frasier in the iconic Cheers spinoff, the charismatic womanizer Flaherty was rarely left to his own devices and allowed to work in peace. Richard Kind stole every scene he was in as the immature press secretary Paul Thomas Lassiter, whose sneaky antics and constant manipulation of others offered a blueprint for Veep’s far more cynical take on the inner workings of political campaigns a few years later.

Alan Ruck’s chief of staff, Stuart Bondek, was a commitment-phobic cad, while Michael Boatman’s Carter Heywood was the only other sane man in Flaherty’s chaotic office. Early on, Flaherty had a journalist love interest played by emerging star Carla Gugino, only for Connie Britton’s Nikki Faber to replace her after season 1. Then, Fox himself left the series after season 4 following the star's real-life Parkinson's disease diagnosis, and was replaced by Charlie Sheen as the suspiciously similar character Charlie Crawford.

With a superb supporting cast including future Once Upon A Time breakout star Lana Parilla, Heather Locklear, and Jennifer Esposito, Spin City was never short on star power. However, much like Lawrence’s later ensemble comedy Scrubs, the show never used this A-list lineup to paper over weak writing. The central gang were as richly realized as the heroes of How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory's heroes, and their interplay ensured that Spin City successfully continued for two seasons after Fox’s early exit.

Bill Lawrence Is Still Creating Shows With Stellar Casts

While Fox himself later appeared in an episode of Scrubs, he and Lawrence had an emotional reunion when the star played a Parkinson’s patient in season 3 of Lawrence’s Apple TV dramedy Shrinking. Starring Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, and Luke Tennie, Shrinking has one of the most impressive casts ever assembled for a comedy series, but this has almost become par for the course with Lawrence’s shows since Scrubs.

While the Apple TV series Ted Lasso is arguably the creator’s most famous effort outside of Scrubs, the more recent HBO show Rooster stars Steve Carell as its protagonist, with Danielle Deadwyler, Britton, Ruck, Brenda Strong, and John C. McGingley rounding out the ensemble cast. The stellar lineups of these sitcoms just go to prove that, even years after Spin City’s end, the Scrubs creator still knows the value of a killer cast.