Writer: Tom Hertz
Director: Andy Cadiff

Episode Length: 22:40

Guest Stars:

Rating: n/a

Rating:  TV-14 - D

First Broadcast: November 12, 1997

Storyline #1: All My Rumors
Mike's date this week is a writer for "All My Children", a soap opera on, whaddya know, ABC.  Lisa, Mike's date, has come up with a new character for the show:   Mick Flannery, Deputy Mayor of New York.  Seeing the similarities, Mike watches the show the next day to see what happens to this new character seemingly based on him.  He finds that Lisa has taken their date, word for word, and written the script to copy the actions of the previous evening.  Needless to say, this puts a little pressure on Mike because he knows that everyone will know how he "performed" in the next day's show.  The night ensues and Mike feels he has done well.  But the next day, his character does not perform very well at all.  This leads the Staff to believe that Mike couldn't perform.  Mike doesn't take it well and breaks up with Lisa in an effort to solve his problems.  But instead of Lisa's character breaking up with Mick, she continues to say Mick is impotent.  Mike visits the set and pleads to kill off Mick so he will not be embarrassed.  Lisa balks at first, because Mick is a "ratings monster" but bargains that she will kill off Mick if Mike can find a suitable replacement.  (See Storyline #3)

Storyline #2: I'm Not Gay, I Just Play One on TV
Stuart attends a party with Carter and is photographed with him.  In the next day's paper, the picture's caption reads "Carter Heywood and 'Friend'."   Stuart has been outed.  Later on, he runs into an old girlfriend who is apologetic.  She falls under the impression that their relationship was so bad because Stuart was gay.  While originally horrified, Stuart figures out that it's a way to get on good terms with the ladies.  In fact, Stuart says he can't figure out whether he's gay or not, so Jeanie (his old girlfriend) offers to sleep with him to help him figure it out.   After Stuart uses up all the pull he has with Jeanie, he moves on to Susan, another woman around the office, or so he thinks.  While Carter is horrified that Stuart is trivializing his lifestyle, he exacts his revenge by not telling Stuart that he knows that Susan is really a man.  The next day, Stuart shows up to work visibly upset from the previous night.

Storyline #3:  Public Speaking 101
Paul sets up speaking engagements for the Mayor without Mike's permission so Mike tries to put the kibosh on it.  The Mayor pleads that he wants to participate because he always wanted to be an actor as he was growing up.  Unfortunately, Mike is unable to stop the live press conference and lets Paul and the Mayor go through with the plan.   Like anything that Paul sets up, he ends up screwing up the proceedings by spilling coffee on himself while feeding the Mayor answers through an earpiece.  This causes the Mayor to spout off nonsense when asked questions.  This display seals the deal for Mike and he refuses to let the Mayor participate in any other town hall meetings.   But since Paul had set up more, Paul is put in charge of representing the administration.  At the next meeting, Paul suggests that a biker give his seat to an old woman, sparking a riot.  Meanwhile, the Mayor gets to live out his dream as he replaces Mick on "All My Children".

Review: My Life is a Soap Opera

Overall, a representative episode.  What was supposed to be an episode of Spin City instead turned into The Mick Flannery Show.  The only part of the show that held any interest was Stuart's being gay.  Stuart has fought for so long against gayness that having him having to accept it by de-facto was amusing.  The other plots were merely sideshows.

The concept of having a fake Mike character on a soap opera held some intrigue.   But what could have been a ironical farce turned out to be dull and boring.   Once you saw Mike psyching himself up in the mirror, you knew that things wouldn't go well and Mike wouldn't take to the idea of everyone knowing about his personal life.   I would have rather seen more of Mick's actual character than the reactions to him by others.  It would have been better to see Mick portrayed closely to Mike and have Mike fret over how he is in real life.  Instead, we see Mike pouting over being mis-represented sexually.

They should have used Mick to do the same thing they did with Stuart.  Stuart's predicament was not humorous because of the situation, but because of the character's history.   We've seen Stuart rail against homosexuals so often that to see him trying to justify himself trying to become one was outstanding.  Meanwhile, Mike is only torn because his mirror just isn't living up to his expectations. 

One would think that the Mayor would have had enough of the cameras having been Mayor for 2 years now.  He's on TV virtually every day.  Even though it wasn't the main focus of that particular plot, it was probably the strongest, even with it's holes.   I was very surprised that Paul was able to get away with going over Mike's head. Stuart went over Mike, in a way, in The Apartment and almost got fired because of it.  Carter went over Mike in Pride and Prejudice and Grand Illusions and almost got fired over it.   Why should Paul get any leeway by being allowed to continue with the town hall meetings?  I guess the scene with Paul feeding the Mayor stats was amusing, but it seems that the reporters would have picked up on the ploy and called him on it.  This part of the episode drags it down.

One more bone to pick and I'll be done.  Is Jennifer Esposito going to join the cast or is she forever relegated to guest star.  She seems just as much integral to the action as any of the other characters.  Or are they just using her like they used Jannelle last year and she has to wait a year before she gets promoted?  Ok, I'm done.

Rating [5 pt. scale]: 2.5

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