By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Copyright Paramount
When the character of Hemmer was announced as part of the cast of Strange New Worlds, I was more than excited. We were getting a series regular from an unknown species that was introduced in Star Trek Enterprise in its fourth season. The Aenar were a sub species of the Andorians which were previously unknown. When the Romulans launch a marauder that can appear as any craft they wish, the Andorians see a Tellarite vehicle and vice versa. It is designed to create conflict in the Alpha Quadrant and start a war that will allow the Romulans to invade. There is no Federation at this point but we see the first footsteps as Archer (Scott Bakula) manages to unite Andorians, Vulcans and Tellarites against the threat. The ship it turns out is being remotely piloted by the brain power of a captured Aenar, Gared. Andorian Commander Shran (Jeffrey Coombs) leads Archer to the Aenar domain where Gared’s sister Jhamel agrees to help. The Aenar are blind but highly telepathic to the point their other senses are superior which is why the Romulans kidnapped Gared in the first place. Gared was imprisoned on Romulus but able to control the marauder ships easily. He could also speak to his sister across the void too such was their abilities.
The chance to explore such a fascinating race was a spectacular opportunity launching Hemmer into the same league as Data, Odo and Spock. A pacifist that refuses to take part in the Enterprise’s battles but was there to help in any other way. Such moral conflict was ripe for writers but as the current Kurtzman backlash shows, they hadn’t a clue what to with him. Little did we know that the producers intended Hemmer to die before the end of the first season. He becomes infected with Gorn babies and sacrifices himself to kill them and save his crew mates. To say I was pissed was an almighty understatement.
They said Bruce Horak would be their franchise’s Jeffrey Coombs who has played multiple roles in Trek over the years. But did that happen?
Nope, it didn’t.
Again, a wonderful opportunity to showcase a severely sighted actor as a central character alive for fresh exploration and worldview. So why then did Trek screw up so bad and to be honest, we should have seen the signs right there of the end of Trek, swopping character for politics and woke.
Hemmer did not appear in all of the episodes and in some he was merely a walk on. He was front and centre in the Elysian Kingdom where we saw his humour, adaptability and telepathic abilities. He was dead the next episode, All Those That Wander. So, since the plan was always to kill him off, it was vital you had him front and centre so audiences would fall in love with him. Not that they didn’t but given what was coming, it was an opportunity totally wasted. Kurtzman, like Disney, did not know what he had and what the legacy should be.
Now, where could Kurtzman and his team have looked to see just how it should be done? How to fully endear a three dimensional character to the audience before they are killed off in a shocker of an episode. Hmmm….
Look no further than The Orville and Seth McFarlane.
How ironic that a show that was meant to be a comedy version of Trek but soon found itself delivering stories better than Star Trek Strange New Worlds did.
And it came in the form of one Charley Burke.
Played by Anne Winters, Charly was introduced in the third season as a new navigator. In the second season, in the episodes Identity parts 1 and 2, the Orville’s robotic emissary, Isaac was revealed to be on a mission not to learn about organics but to assess their status for genocide. With the Orville crew captured, the Kaylons launched their fleet to exterminate first Earth then every other planet of organics from the galaxy. Isaac turned on his own people but not before thousands had been killed in the battle.
One such person was fellow ensign Amanda, who served with Charly. Charly fell in love with her but never got to tell her how she felt. Amanda was killed while saving Charly.
So, when she ended up on the Orville serving with Isaac, she made it clear that she hated him. Isaac had triggered the battle and his restoration as an active member of the Orville crew was met with isolation and distrust.
There was nothing backwards as Charly. She told Isaac how she felt about him and why.
“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.”
Now exiled from Kaylon and hated by those around him, Isaac committed suicide.
One of Charly’s skills was the ability to see problems in five dimensions. This skill helps her save Isaac. Once restored she tells him, she didn’t do it for him. It was sonly the pleas of young Marcus Finn that swayed her to do it.
Isaac was a father figure to the Finn kids and while young Marcus doesn’t hold a grudge, his older brother does.
While this story arc continued for the whole season, Charly still was in the middle of the action, almost being executed at the hands of a Krill in a coup.
When a weapon was created that would kill every Kaylon, Charly helped with the construction of the device. With a peace of sorts now in effect, she went with her shipmates to Kelly Grayson’s cabin. We learned Charly could sing as she duetted with fellow pilot Gordon Malloy. Charly opens up to Kelly about how she feels about this. We know Charly by this stage.
Indeed, she is forced to team up with a human looking Isaac when the ship goes back in time to rescue Mally who was stranded in our time. In order to go home again, she and Isaac must locate dysonium to power the quantum drive.
She handles a bar full of bikers, can ride a motorcycle, passes Isaac off as her brother and fiancé before they get the mineral. She is disturbed by Isaac trying to make small talk with her. He is simply trying to get to know her. While Charly isn’t exactly warming to Isaac, she opens up and tells him all about Amanda and how the Kaylon invasion took away any future with her. Like Data, Isaac is a smart cookie and still thanks her for saving his life.
And that is the difference between Hemmer and Charly. She was kept at the centre of the show, each week peeling off another layer off her character. The best Hemmer got was to be a Yoda to Uhura.
Hemmer kind of feels like Captain Phasma; a great character woefully misused and left to fail.
Little did we know that the entire reason for Charly was about to be made very clear and just how carefully constructed was her plotlines right under our noses.
As I said earlier, she helped construct a weapon that could destroy thousands of Kaylons at once. It is a doomsday weapon but one that makes the Kaylon stop and think twice. For now, the Kaylon threat is ended, at least until they find a weakness. They will not as Charly and Isaac are the only ones that know how it ticks. They have set a self destruct into it if tampered with.
But when it is stolen and handed to the Krill and Moclan alliance, the race is on to stop them setting it off, so it destroys every Kaylon in existence. Earlier in the season, Charly would have cheered for this but she cannot stand by and let an entire species be murdered even if they are robots.
Forced to team up with the |Kaylon to stop the massacre, they arrive too late.
The weapon is activated and Charly cannot turn it off.
There is only one option.
Charly must stay behind and focus the blast into the Moclan secret base to save the Kaylons.
Now, this was a shocker and came right out of the blue. How could they introduce such a great character that we have grown to like and love then kill her off? Charly manages to tell Amanda that they will be together soon before she is killed in the explosion. There are no tears, no regrets, just a relief that Charly will be with the woman she loves again. Even in her death, we learn that Charly is a believer in life after death.
Kaylon Prime is confused about what Charly has done. He cannot concede why someone that hated his kind would give her life to save them.
In scenes that are just stunning, Grayson yells that she did it to save the Kaylon from being wiped out of existence.
It is her sacrifice that begins a new dawn between the Union and the Kaylon. Up to this point, organics were things that could not be trusted and had to be killed. They judged the rest of the species by the cruel actions of their builders who tortured and degraded the robots as slaves.
Now, the sacrifice of one girl whose world was shattered by them, has died to protect their right to exist.
As Isaac tells the Prime; the organics are his friends which is what he was trying to tell his species all along.
We know Charly. We don’t know Hemmer. We cared about Hemmer but we took Charly to our hearts because she was right there with us every week, not reduced to a mere couple of scenes.
When we walked away from the Hemmer’s death, we were stunned at the stupidity of it. When we walked away from Charly’s, we were broken hearted.
For a show that started a s a comedy homage top Trek, busted its balls compared to the Kurtzman era, tackling issues Trek had not touched. I’d swop the musical episode for any of the Orville episodes in any season.
Shame on you, Kurtzman and well done Seth McFarlane.
We will always mourn Charly but we will always wish Hemmer had been handled right.