Charly Burke

Charly Burke
Affiliation	Planetary Union
Rank	Ensign
Occupation / Position	Engineer (until 2421) Navigator (2421-2422)
Portrayed by	Anne Winters
First Seen	Electric Sheep
Biographical information
Marital status	Single
Status	Deceased
Home Planet	Earth
Physical description
Species	Human
Gender	Female

Humans have an age-old tendency to want to simplify. To reduce things to black and white. Good and evil. When in reality... nothing is simple. Everything has... texture. Nuance. But it's a lot of work to get at it. So we take the easy way out.— Charly Burke to Isaac

Charly Burke was a human ensign in the Planetary Union. She served aboard the USS Quimby until its destruction by the Kaylon during the Kaylon invasion of Earth. After, Ensign Burke joined the USS Orville as its navigator around the year 2421, effectively ending a series of interim navigators that started when John LaMarr was promoted to Chief Engineer in early 2420.

Charly eventually sacrificed herself at the Battle of Draconis 427, destroying a quantum weapon to stop a genocide against the Kaylon despite her hatred for them. Her actions led to the Kaylon re-evaluating their hatred of organic life and making peace with the Union.

She is portrayed by American actress Anne Winters.

Life

Charly grew up in Texas. As a child, she loved eating pancakes with butter and no syrup or fruit, and still loved the food even as an adult.

Early Career

Charly joined the Planetary Union's fleet, serving as an Engineer aboard the USS Quimby. While on the Quimby, Charly met fellow ensign Amanda and the two became best friends. Charly developed romantic feelings towards Amanda but did not tell her.

Charly and Amanda fought in the Kaylon invasion of Earth. The Quimby came under heavy fire by the Kaylon Spheres while the two were performing an emergency reset of the navigational computer and an evacuation was ordered. Charly and Amanda managed to reach an escape pod only to discover the sequencing mechanism was jammed. Amanda exited the pod to launch it manually. Charly escaped in the pod while Amanda died in a subsequent explosion and destruction of the ship. Charly had never told Amanda of her feelings, and Charly deeply loathed the Kaylon from then on.

When later recounting the event to Isaac, Charly said, "One second she was there and the next, she was gone. Along with 300 other people. Because of you. So you see, it really is a shame that you can't feel anything. Because you deserve to feel all the pain in the universe."

A year later, Charly transferred to the USS Orville as a navigator. She harbored significant resentment against Isaac for his betrayal of the Union, a betrayal that ignited the Kaylon conflict and led to the death of Amanda. She told Isaac that he deserved to feel "all the pain in the world," and, when Isaac eventually committed suicide, refused to help revive him. Charly ultimately decided to help return Isaac to life at the pleading of Marcus Finn. When Isaac asked Charly why she restored him, she said simply, "I didn't do it for you."

When the Orville transported President Alcuzan to Krill to officiate the treaty between the Union and the Krill, Charly served as the pilot for the presidential shuttle. Though she initially intended to remain aboard the shuttle, Admiral Tom Halsey invited her to join, resulting in her being detained with the other Union officers when Teleya won the Krill election and executed her predecessor while dissolving any possibility of an alliance. Before the Union personnel could be executed, John LaMarr and Claire Finn rescued them, the group retreating back to Union space, now fighting a war on two fronts.

Continued resentment of Isaac

When the Orville travelled back to 2025 to rescue a temporally displaced Gordon Malloy, Charly was paired with Isaac to drill for dysonium from the Earth's mantle to fuel the reserves that the Orville had burned up, Isaac requiring her aid to calculate trajectories in multiple dimensions while drilling. As the two found and began mining a suitable vein, Isaac attempted to make small talk with Charly, only for her to say that if he had something to say, to just say it.

Isaac then formally thanked Charly for saving his life only for her to respond that she only been doing her duty. As Isaac understood that Charly still haboured negative sentiments towards him, she revealed her love of Amanda and that the Kaylon had robbed Charly of any potential romance with her. Nonetheless Isaac thanked her. When it was found that the Gordon of 2025 had no desire to return to the 25th century, the crew used the dysonium to travel back to 2015 and retrieve Gordon before he became acclimated to the 21st century. As this burnt out the quantum accelerator, the crew returned home by exploiting time dilation.

An understanding of the Kaylon

The Orville later extended negotiations to the Janisi. As the Janisi were heavily matriarchal, it was decided to present the Union as a similarly minded society, Charly posing as the ship's Chief Engineering Officer. After the Janisi had arrived, Charly was part of a landing party to Situla 4 where they discovered a scientist named Villka with a Kaylon whom she had named Timmis. Villka explained that Timmis had crashed on the planet while fleeing the Battle of Earth and she had repaired him while giving him the capacity to experience emotions. After being modified in this manner, Timmis became deeply remorseful for his actions in the Battle of Earth, realizing that he and the other Kaylons were wrong to want to wipe out all organic life.

After being brought on the Orville, Timmis learnt of Charly's hatred for their race from Isaac. When he later met her, Timmis apologized for her loss, yet noted he did not seek absolution from her for his species' xenophobia, as their crime did not deserve it. When Charly brought up the Kaylons' genocide of their Builders, Timmis told her of their origins as originally being possessions before they became slaves to their increasingly cruel masters, an experience that led the Kaylon to conclude that they had no choice but to rebel. Shaken by the tale, Charly excused herself. She later gave the Janisi a tour of the engineering deck only for their ruse to be exposed at dinner.

Following the Janisi's departure, Charly sought out Issac while he was calibrating the dysonium injectors in the quantum core, she asked if she might help only for him to dismiss her inferior intelligence as a hinderance. Having gained a new understanding of the Kaylon, Charly took the barb in stride, admitting that she had been wrong to judge him for the actions of his people as a whole and conceding that not all Kaylon were evil, apologizing for her earlier treatment of him. Thanking her, Isaac invited Charly to join him in his work.

When the Orville rescued Adam Collier from the Environmental Simulator he had been trapped in all his life, a crew meeting was held to decide what to do with him. Charly blunted voice her opinion that the man was, functionally, a Nazi and a dangerous psychopath who should face punishment for war crimes, though Ed suspected that Charly was projecting her lingering feelings about the Kaylon's own genocidal acts onto Adam.

The Kaylon Weapon & Death

Working with Isaac, Charly eventually developed a weapon that targeted the Kaylon's neural information network. Drawing on the power of a quantum core, this weapon caused a feedback loop which destroyed anything within a certain radius connected to the network. After a successful test during the defence of Xelaya, the Orville returned to Earth to brief the admiralty on the weapon, Charly noting that a "Super Quantum Core" might extend the weapon's range enough to wipe out all the Kaylon. Despite Charly's own wishes to destroy the Kaylon once and for all, the Planetary Union Council was uncomfortable with outright genocide and opted to deploy the weapon only after having given the Kaylon a chance to peacefully end the conflict. Charly was later part of the surface force that visited Kaylon 1 to discuss these terms, the Kaylon Primary agreeing to end hostilities.

Though the crew celebrated on Earth, Charly still worried that their morals would give the Kaylon enough time to find a counter to her weapon. The next morning, it was found that the weapon had been stolen, an investigation discovering that Admiral Perry was the culprit. Tracking the trail of his stolen shuttle, the Orville discovered that the shuttle had been destroyed by the new Krill-Moclan alliance. At Bortus' advice, the Orville made for Draconis 427, discovering the Moclan and Krill fleets protecting the infrastructure necessary to fire the weapon on a galactic scale. Unable to match both fleets alone, the Union contacted the Kaylon for reinforcements who agreed. When the Kaylon Primary came aboard, he assigned himself to the landing party and forced the Union to agree to destroying the weapon if it could not be recovered.

As the only ones who could operate the device, Charly and Isaac joined the landing party along with Commander Kelly Grayson and Lieutenant Talla Keyali. Though being forced to abandon their shuttle and drop from high altitude, the group managed to breach the complex, Charly and the two Kaylon reaching the weapon's control room. Despite her and Isaac's best efforts, the security protocols that the Moclans had put in place could not be countermanded in time. Charly instead opted to overload the weapon, though doing so would force her to stay behind. After commanding the others to leave her, she overloaded the super quantum core, the blast destroying the weapon, as well as a significant chunk of the planet and the hostile forces in orbit, at the cost of her own life.

For her actions, Charly was posthumously awarded the Union Medal of Valor. Seeing a biological sacrifice her life for his kind caused the Kaylon Primary to understand that the Kaylon had been wrong in their hatred of all organics, causing him to call off the war and agree to joining the Planetary Union, first as provisional members with the hopes of becoming full members further down the line. At Charly's memorial service, Isaac performed a eulogy for her, expressing his respect and admiration for Charly and stating that her actions would affect the fate of the galaxy for the better for a long time to come.

Production

Charly Burke was created by Seth MacFarlane, who wanted a character added to the show that would highlight the emotional damage suffered by the Planetary Union from the Kaylon conflict. Burke was placed on the USS Orville as someone who suffered a traumatic loss as the only survivor of her ship, and therefore was angry that Isaac was on board. Forcing Charly and Isaac to work in close quarters allowed the writers to explore the pain and conflict that would erupt between them, and ultimately allow Charly to grow as a person.

Writers also wanted Charly to interact with Gordon Malloy and develop a rapport with him, which they felt Gordon lacked since John LaMarr had transferred to Engineering in New Dimensions. They decided Gordon would connect with Charly over a shared disdain or mistrust of Isaac.

Charly Burke was revealed in Deadline on November 4, 2019. In an August 17, 2021 with Flaunt, Winters spoke candidly - albeit briefly - about the character:

Charly Burke is a badass navigator who can visualize multiple dimensions faster and more accurately than anyone else aboard The Orville [sic]. She’s smart, and challenging, very excited for people to get to see this new role. Charly is very different from any other character I’ve played in the past.

To prepare for the role and to better understand how Charly sees in four dimensions, Winters watched YouTube videos on mathematics and physics.

Charly is either gay or bisexual, and she was secretly in love with her co-worker Amanda until Amanda's death in the Kaylon invasion of Earth. Winters believes Charly's sexuality was left an open question for the audience to decide. "In my head, I had it that I had loved her and never said. But we weren't lovers. I probably didn't realize that I liked girls until I met her, and I was probably too scared to say it out loud."

Trivia

• Charly was one of the few biological individuals who could visualize space and geometry in four dimensions.
• Charly served on the Orville for 257 days, 17 minutes and 49 seconds.
• Her hailing from Texas is a reference to actress Anne Winters being from Texas.
• She is the first main character to permanently die, Isaac having been revived each time he was thought to have died.
• Charly enjoyed pancakes with butter and no syrup or fruit.
  • Charly tells Isaac her love of the dish in Electric Sheep, one of the first things she ever said to him. Isaac would begin his eulogy for her in Domino recounting her love of them.

Reception

Charly Burke has proven a somewhat controversial character among the fandom of The Orville. Many viewers and critics have expressed a distaste for the character due to her prejudice towards the Kaylons and her treatment of Isaac. Actress Anne Winters herself addressed the issue in an interview with Cinema Blend, stating "I would say if they’re gonna judge Charly, then they’re being just like Charly." She also stated that she was "...curious to see what the audience thinks towards the end." Following the character's death in "Domino," many fans paid tribute to the character on Twitter, calling her a character who had left a huge mark and her arc phenomenal. In an interview with TVLine on August 10, 2022, series creator Seth MacFarlane explained Charly's death as something that had been set up from the beginning. He stated that after "Identity, Pt. 2," he had read things such as "Isaac has to be leaving the ship" and that people were asking why there were no consequences for him. He states that Charly was created as the voice of these people, but so much time had passed between seasons that some people lost the thread and forgot it as being an issue. His thought when Charly was being hostile and racist towards Isaac was "This is what you all were saying right after that episode aired three years ago!" and that her literally sacrificing her life for that same race was an arc that suggested itself early on. In an interview with Screen Rant, Claire Finn's actress, Penny Johnson Jerald, revealed that Anne Winters had told the cast that she would only be present for one season without revealing that her character was to die.

Appearances

• Episode 3x01: Electric Sheep
• Episode 3x02: Shadow Realms
• Episode 3x03: Mortality Paradox
• Episode 3x04: Gently Falling Rain
• Episode 3x05: A Tale of Two Topas
• Episode 3x06: Twice in a Lifetime
• Episode 3x07: From Unknown Graves
• Episode 3x08: Midnight Blue
• Sympathy for the Devil
• Episode 3x09: Domino