Coming up: one more strong performance by Warner

Most people knew that Malcolm-Jamal Warner (shown here) was a skilled comedy actor. He’d been doing that since he was 13.
But in recent years, the Fox network has shown us something else: This guy was gifted at drama — filled with subtle intensity.
Now we see one final example: Warner — who died in a swimming accident in July, at 54 — has an emotional role in “Murder in a Small Town,” at 8 p.m. Tuesday (Oct. 7) on Fox.
Many of his best roles have been on Fox lately — the final five seasons of “The Resident” (shown here), four episodes as a police official on “Alert,” a heart-breaking episode of “Accused” … and now “Murder in a Small Town,” with bits of blistering emotion, as a dad raging at his ex-wife.
Mostly, people will associate Warner with comedy. He had just turned 14 when “The Cosby Show” opened. It ran for eight seasons, five at No. 1 — often by huge margins — in the Nielsen ratings.
He went on to have his own sitcom, “Malcolm & Eddie,” for four seasons and to guest on others.
But he also mastered drama. Just as “Cosby” was starting, he did a strong “Call to Glory” episode focusing on Black history, a subject he was well-versed on. (He was named after Malcolm X; later, he starred in the “Tuskegee Airmen” TV movie.)
There were other solid dramas over the years — and then, in 2018, he joined “The Resident” as a no-nonsense surgeon called The Raptor. Other Fox shows followed.
This summer, Warner was one of four swimmers swept away by a strong current in Costa Rica. The other three were rescued in time, but he wasn’t.