After four seasons of high ratings and a lot of critical and viewer success, ABC's sitcom Spin City returns for season number five. Premiering Wednesday night, October 18th, Spin City has gotten a dramatic face lift. After battling with Parkinson's Disease for many years former star, Michael J. Fox left at the end of last season. His replacement, Charlie Sheen, begins this season and replacement is not the best word for it. Even Sheen, himself, says, "I can't fill his shoes, all I can do is show up and do what I do."

Sheen plays the new Deputy Mayor to New York City Mayor Randall Winston, Charlie Crawford. I was very skeptical about Sheen carrying the show, I was pleasantly surprised - not too pleasantly however. I knew the series could go one of two ways; they could either make Sheen's character similar Fox's, or completely different. Notice the fact that Michael J. Fox played Mike and Charlie Sheen plays Charlie - at first that scared me a little and I thought they were going to take choice #1, but I quickly realized that, instead, they were going to be a little more creative and use a nice mix of both possibilities.

Mayor Winston, played as brilliantly as ever by Barry Bostwick, decides early on that he wants Mike back, and after 11 minutes of Charlie (who shows up late to begin with) being in the office, the Mayor tries to fire him spouting off that "Mike wouldn't have been late," "Mike wouldn't let this happen," "Mike could fix this." Bostwick's performance on this series has always been superb as the scatter-brained Mayor - that much has not changed! After a few moments of trying to let Charlie down easy, the Mayor decides that if he refers to Charlie as Mike, then he would probably feel much better about things. So throughout this episode, at least through the eyes of the Mayor, Charlie is very similar to Mike. This makes the audience feel a little more comfortable too (at least it helped me deal with the absence of Fox).

Continuing in her best role to date, Heather Locklear returns as Director of Special Projects, Catlin Moore. Right off the bat there is a spark of dislike from her towards Charlie. He's a lady's man and tends to come off as thinking that he's God's gift to women, appropriately, Catlin feels differently. This is the area where Charlie's character traits differ very much from those of Mike.

The city problem of the day is a toll booth worker's strike, Catlin almost has the deal signed and the picketing stoped. But to make matters worse between Charlie and Caitlin we find out that Joan, the head of the Toll Worker's Union, was dumped by Charlie years ago. As soon as he walks into the same room with Joan, she abruptly starts expressing her dislike for Charlie and refuses to sign the deal.

And to make things even more fun, Charlie cannot remember Joan - he has no idea who she is or when he dated her or how he broke up with her. Catlin asks if he remembers anything about her, he says no, she calls him a "Pig!" He says, "Wait a minute, that brings back some memories." There were quite a few exchanges like that, but by the end of the episode Catlin winds up liking Charlie somewhat...and so do we. He fixes the problem with Joan, gets the deal done and basically saves the day.

Like many viewers, I had low expectations going in to this episode. But I found that I liked a lot more about Charlie than I thought I would - make no mistake, there is potential. And among other things it is fun to see Catlin's life suddenly become more difficult - Charlie seems like a challenge for her and I'm sure this will be explored for many storylines to come. Plus, it has been rumored that Fox will appear as a guest star on the series this season.

Spin City's future depends on one thing and one thing only - wether or not viewers accept Charlie. That's the determining factor, because as strong, entertaining and likeable as the rest of the cast is and has always been, it always seemed to be Michael J. Fox who completed the show, he gave it that extra, very important chemistry that seemed to be the central axis that the series revolved around. Something is really missing without Fox, and Sheen doesn't have the strength that Fox had. But, please keep in mind, so far we've only seen Sheen in one episode!

He needs time to build his character and to earn our love and respect...and most importantly we have to eventually care about what happens to Charlie. At this point I, for one, really don't - however, I care a lot about the rest of the cast, so I intend to hang in there and see what develops in the coming weeks.

Robert Bach is a writer and musician and former entertainment editor for an East Coast publication.

Got a problem? Email Robert at filmmonthly@hotmail.com