Russell Brand’s ‘Brand X’ expands to an hour against Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart

After experimenting in the world of late-night television over the past few years, FX is inching closer to making a permanent commitment … and they are doing so with one of the edgier comedians in the business.

After a successful run this past summer which included more than a million total viewers an episode, the network announced Wednesday that beginning on February 7, the series “Brand X with Russell Brand” will expand into an hour-long format for the first time, and will also be live in order to better take advantage of its host’s talents as an exceptional comedian when it comes to improvisation and riffing with guests.

For the first few weeks, “Brand X” is going to air beginning at 11:30 p.m. Eastern, and will thus compete more or less directly against taped late-night shows hosted by David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jay Leno. Obviously, Brand has an edge in that you really do not know just what is going to happen when he comes out on stage, even though it is hard to hype up guests and events with a live show.

Following a run of three weeks, the series is going to jump forward to 11:00, which puts it against Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien’s late-night shows, after the conclusion of another FX series in “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.” We hope that the show succeeds, if for no other reason than that variety is very much a good thing when it comes to late-night comedy. The only major downside is that Brand is only set to do thirteen episodes as of this writing, which of course makes this a very different sort of program than any of the other ones mentioned here. (The only real comparison at all is “Kathy” on Bravo.)

Are you thrilled to see Brand back? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below!

Photo: FX