Prime Video Now Streaming All Six Seasons of Classic Sitcom

All six seasons of Spin City, the ’90s political comedy from Ted Lasso creator Bill Lawrence, are now available to stream on Prime Video. The series, which ran from 1997 until 2002, originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike Flaherty, the workaholic deputy mayor of New York, who works under eccentric governor Randall Winston (Barry Bostwick). The workplace comedy also starred Alan Ruck, Richard Kind, Jennifer Esposito, and Connie Britton during its run. Eventually, Michael J. Fox left the series as a result of his Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis, and Mike was written out, replaced by a new character named Charlie (Charlie Sheen).

For years, Spin City was not available digitally in its entirety, presumably due to some arcane rights issue. DVDs were available — but very much not cheap. In 2020, the whole series started streaming in one place for the first time on an Australian streaming service, and in 2021, it headed to Pluto TV, where it aired free with ads. The move to Prime Video is the first time the complete series has been available on a top-tier American streamer.

The episodes and seasons are still unavailable to purchase digitally, with no purchase option on Prime and a total absence from other platforms like Vudu.

Spin City is emblematic of a lot of shows created during the ’90s. Created before streaming video was a mainstream thing, the series seemingly had no contractual stipulations in place for distribution on the internet. The relatively small runs of DVDs was not enough to satisfy the number of fans the show had, leading to big mark-ups on the secondary market while digital sales remained unavailable. It’s likely the move to Prime Video will raise visibility on the series. Pluto does solid numbers but doesn’t typically drive any social media buzz.

When Fox announced his diagnosis in 1998, he was heading up Spin City. In 2001, he stepped away from the show, effectively replaced by Sheen, but only really retired after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“My short-term memory is shot,” Fox admitted in an interview with People magazine. “I always had a real proficiency for lines and memorization. And I had some extreme situations where the last couple of jobs I did were actually really word-heavy parts. I struggled during both of them.”

Fox has turned his eye toward becoming an author, with an autobiographical book, No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, out most recently. It details some of the struggles he has overcome since his diagnosis, and how he manages to stay positive when a lot of people would think he has reason to be pretty upset.

“I’m down to this,” Fox told People of the writing. “My guitar playing is no good. My sketching is no good anymore, my dancing never was good, and acting is getting tougher to do. So it’s down to writing. Luckily, I really enjoy it.”