BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Michael J. Fox will return to series TV with a four-episode guest role on FX's "Rescue Me."

FX also announced that Academy Award-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden ("Pollock") will be joining the Glenn Close legal drama "Damages" as a second-season series regular, while Ted Danson will return to the show for several episodes.

On "Rescue Me," which stars Denis Leary as troubled firefighter Tommy Gavin, Fox will play a "very funny, very original character," said John Landgraf, president and general manager of FX Networks.

Fox's character, who uses a wheelchair, is the new boyfriend of Tommy's estranged wife Janet (Andrea Roth) and will be introduced in the fifth-season premiere in spring 2009. The episode's air date was not announced.

Fox, 47, a friend of Leary's, was "really excited about the part," Landgraf said.