When he spoke with the Sun-Times in September, standup comic, TV host and former Hyde Park resident W. Kamau Bell expressed both eagerness and apprehension shortly before his socio-political comedy chatfest “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” moved from once a week on FX to four times per week on the cable network’s less widely available sister channel FXX.
“Fear is the engine that keeps me going forward,” he said. “Whenever I feel totally confident, things go really badly.”
And so they have. According to the Hollywood Reporter and Defamer, after only two seasons Bell and his crew recently got the ax. With a diminished pool of potential viewers and absent an audience-boosting lead-in such as FX’s hit “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” ratings dropped sharply. “Recent episodes,” the Reporter reports, “dipped as low as just 10,000 total viewers.”
Defamer confirmed the cancellation with FX spokesman John Solberg, whoexpressed affection for the show and called Bell “an incredible talent.”
“Unfortunately the ratings didn’t meet the expectations; that’s why we had to make the decision.”
The final episode — a “best of” clip job — airs Sunday, Nov. 17.
