About a year and a half ago, I offered a thread about what I thought was the best episode featuring Dax. There were one or two contentious threads at the time about why Farrell left the series and the way it was framed in the series, and I thought discussing Dax in a different manner might create some common ground.
I've noticed that a thread about Vic Fontaine has been getting attention, and I want to do the same for his character as I did for Dax. My feelings about Vic have changed slightly over the years. Whereas I first saw him as one generation imposing its interests on my own, I think of Vic as mostly part of the background of the series. Their are certainly more offensive creatures, and his premise is simple enough that it adds few complications. He's just a manifestation of the holodeck, the tool that three series used to entertain their characters.
Talking about Vic's best episode, I would think, would not be all that interesting. He was only a feature in three, and I would think IOAPM would be a unanimous choice. Instead, I want to focus on his best moment. The performance of "Here's to the Losers" and the ensuing dialogue were both funny and melancholy. The notion that Bashir and Quark still carried torches for Dax was a hamhanded way of revisiting the characters' past relationships. However, using Vic was something the episode did effectively on that front: it gave Bashir and Quark a way of saying goodbye that did not interfere with Worf's mourning at the end of the episode or Sisko's spiritual crisis. Imagine if Bashir gave a speech about what Dax had meant to him! Moreover, I think it gave Bashir's character a little more focus going into the last season.
Of course, the song is funny, and I think it is one of the more interesting elements of pop culture to be recognized in Star Trek.
I've noticed that a thread about Vic Fontaine has been getting attention, and I want to do the same for his character as I did for Dax. My feelings about Vic have changed slightly over the years. Whereas I first saw him as one generation imposing its interests on my own, I think of Vic as mostly part of the background of the series. Their are certainly more offensive creatures, and his premise is simple enough that it adds few complications. He's just a manifestation of the holodeck, the tool that three series used to entertain their characters.
Talking about Vic's best episode, I would think, would not be all that interesting. He was only a feature in three, and I would think IOAPM would be a unanimous choice. Instead, I want to focus on his best moment. The performance of "Here's to the Losers" and the ensuing dialogue were both funny and melancholy. The notion that Bashir and Quark still carried torches for Dax was a hamhanded way of revisiting the characters' past relationships. However, using Vic was something the episode did effectively on that front: it gave Bashir and Quark a way of saying goodbye that did not interfere with Worf's mourning at the end of the episode or Sisko's spiritual crisis. Imagine if Bashir gave a speech about what Dax had meant to him! Moreover, I think it gave Bashir's character a little more focus going into the last season.
Of course, the song is funny, and I think it is one of the more interesting elements of pop culture to be recognized in Star Trek.
