 Charlie Sheen joins the cast of ABC's 'Spin City" this week |
(Round One) |
Can heavy-duty Heather tame
Tomcat Charlie on 'Spin City'?
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
You probably thought the TV question of the week was going to
be: Can Charlie Sheen clean up his act enough to make us forget
he's trying to replace Michael J. Fox, one of TV's all-time good
guys, as the leading man of ABC's "Spin City"?
Well, the truth is that question isn't worth asking. After all, Fox was an Emmy-winning Eagle Scout and Charlie Sheen, who never made it out of the Beaver Patrol, in a manner of speaking, is the sort of guy who might hide a hooker in his pup tent at the Scout Jamboree.
In other words: No contest.
Sheen is no Michael J. Fox and, even if he practiced night and day for 10 years, never could be. What's more, I'm pretty sure even the straightened-out, cleaned-up Charlie wouldn't want to be.
But that doesn't mean he's a flop as the new deputy mayor in "Spin City." Quite the contrary. Sheen turns up for the premiere episode Wednesday night, bringing a certain special something to the role of Charlie Crawford: His own bad rep as a dangerous character and serial womanizer. I loved it.
And here's the reason why: Sheen vs. Locklear, the erotic equivalent of Tyson vs. Golotta, the prizefight next Saturday night that they're calling the battle of the bad dudes.
Sheen's Charlie Crawford is a thinly-veiled version of himself. When we discover, during the show's first minute, that he's late for his first press conference, we don't even have to wait for the scene where the scantily-clad Swedish flight attendant climbs out of Charlie's bed and tells him they seem to be talking about him on that televised press conference that's just getting started. It just figured a sexy woman would be involved.
"Damn it," says Charlie, looking at his watch. "I'm still on Stockholm time!"
And, likewise, it's no surprise that Heather Locklear, who plays sexy Caitlin, the mayor's special assistant, is already going to be gunning for Charlie, eager to hang him up by his cojones for once again letting his skirt-chasing proclivities get in the way of his duties.
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"I know what you're all about!" she tells Charlie when he finally shows up at work. He listens politely as she runs down his naughty reputation as a reprobate, then tells her, "You seemed a lot nicer in your emails."
It's the throwing down of the first gauntlet between the show's two high-powered sex objects and it's a toss-up as to who wins. In her clingy red dress, which reminds us she's built like a relief map of Switzerland, Locklear clearly gets the steam pouring out of Charlie's ears. Within 30 seconds, he realizes she's a man's woman who can give as well as she can take--and even knows a little about sports.
"I'm just a tattoo away from (being) your dream girl," she snaps, after reading him the riot act.
"I usually have to date a girl before she starts treating me this way," says the shellshocked Sheen.
Though they went after the same kind of matchup between Locklear and Fox when she joined the series a season and a half ago, it never took. Reason: Sexually-speaking, Locklear always looked like she could saddle little Michael, stick a bit in his chops and ride him around the room any time she felt like a light workout.
Sheen doesn't look quite so easy. He has the lean and hungry look of a guy who never missed a minute of any all-nighter at Heidi Fleiss' house of pleasure. (As you may recall, Sheen was so cool about his whoring that he even paid Heidi's girls with personal checks.) He looks as if he could make Miss Molly say "Good Golly," as Little Richard might put it.
And if anybody thinks Locklear is just going to roll over for him, guess again. Think back to "Melrose Place" and remember how often she rose from the ashes to sting the guys again. Heather is heavy-duty stuff. One hates to even imagine how many battery-operated gadgets she's worn out.
Though Sheen may not have totally welcomed playing a guy so close to his own persona, he'll have to admit it has inspired the "Spin City" writers to come up with some pretty clever lines that one simply can't imagine ever coming out of Fox's mouth.
For example, he urges the mayor (Barry Bostwick) to give him another chance to get the new job right because he really can't go back to his old job in Washington.
"I burned a lot of bridges in Washington," he tells the mayor, "--and one car. This is my last chance."
It also means the writers are going to build up the faceoff between Sheen's Charlie and Locklear's Caitlin until something really volcanic takes place. I think I want to be around to see it.
Meanwhile, it's going to be fun watching Sheen mess around with his own image as one of Hollywood's all-time great carousers. We're told he's no longer a cokehead and the Sheen family doesn't have to schedule "interventions" every weekend these days. I'm happy for Charlie and glad he can see the humor in it now.
And I love the lines they're giving him. Like the one he comes up with when his sexy flight attendant gives him a wink and tells him, "Thanks for flying Swedish Air."
"And thanks for the upgrade," he says with a leer of his own.
© 2000 by Ron Miller.
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