He captured our hearts as ultra-Republican, straight-laced Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties…and then he broke our hearts when he announced he suffers from Parkinson’s. Michael J. Fox didn’t actually say he’d never act again…but he did make the possibility sound somewhat remote. So, it is a happy (and rare) event that he will soon appear in exactly four episodes of the FX hit Rescue Me.

According to the general manager and president of the network, Fox’s character will be “very funny” and “very original.” He will play a man who is confined to a wheelchair, the new boyfriend of Janet (played by Andrea Roth). His first appearance will air on the show’s fifth season premiere, slated for the spring of 2009.

Fox made the decision to retire from full time acting in 2000, after announcing two years before he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, which causes muscular deterioration and tremors. He appeared in several episodes of Boston Legal in 2006 and has made a few television appearances since leaving the full time scene.