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By JOYCE MILLMAN

"Spin City" (ABC, premiering Tuesday, September 17)

poor Michael J. Fox. He tries to act his age (he's 35), but to anybody who watched TV in the early '80s, he'll always be Alex Keaton, the swaggering Young Republican pipsqueak of "Family Ties." Fox has taken on risky grown-up roles in movies like "Casualties of War," "Bright Lights, Big City" and "The Frighteners," but, combined, they didn't do half the box office of one "Back to the Future" feature. (Or one of the "Homeward Bound" kiddie movies, in which Fox provides the voice of a dog.) Ah, but then came Fox's role as a thinly-disguised George Stephanopolous in Rob Reiner's crowd-pleasing "The American President." Audiences loved him, they really, really loved him, and, finally, Fox seems to have found his ticket out of Andy Hardy hell.

In "Spin City," which reunites Fox with "Family Ties" creator Gary David Goldberg, Fox plays the deputy mayor of New York City, but with a heavy Stephanopolous mini-stud-muffin in turmoil vibe. (Actually, the most interesting thing about "Spin City" is that, in hindsight, it reduces "The American President" to a sort of focus group test run for this sitcom.) Fox's Mike Flaherty is beset by crises, carrying the weight of his boss's political career on his diminutive shoulders, constantly having to come up with spin to cover for the politician's gaffes. The mayor, and Mike's, political affiliations are never stated. But Mike's willingness to have the mayor court gay activists and labor union leaders doesn't exactly scream "Republican."

How did Alex Keaton, hero for a generation of Reagan teens, come to this? Actually, it's not such a stretch. Alex was a product of his political and cultural times, and so is Mike Flaherty. The opportunism is the same, just subtler. Alex held his TV family together by being such a scary Reaganite self-absorbed jerk that it forced the others to band together to socialize the beast within their midst. Mike uses the Clintonian, conciliator/compromiser approach. Playing the calm in the eye of the political storm, much of Fox's performance is based on reacting. His workplace family is made up of the usual suspects -- Barry Bostwick plays the empty suit mayor, Richard Kind of "Mad About You" is the high-strung press secretary who gets on everybody's nerves, Carla Gugino is Ashley, the level-headed City Hall beat reporter with whom Mike is having a secret affair replete with fear of commitment (his).

The first half of Tuesday's pilot is pleasant and professional and not much more. Although Fox is in every scene, he hardly stands out; everybody else gets better lines. Then, all of a sudden, Fox does this little thing where, preparing for a tryst with Ashley, he somersaults over the bed while pulling off his pants, and it's both a total madcap surprise and a winsome reminder that Fox is capable of so much more than his material often demands. Still, if Goldberg can manage to spare us the "Family Ties" Very Special Episodes (please, no nervous breakdowns for Mike), and scare up some writers with some real style and edge, "Spin City" might some day achieve the laugh-out-loud likability of "NewsRadio," its doppelganger on NBC, in which another gifted, small-of-stature comic actor, Dave Foley, plays harried straight-man to an office full of kooks and prima donnas.

Which brings up another point. First Foley, now Fox -- are TV's presiding white males getting smaller, or is it me?