I rather liked Vic and the episodes he was in. I would definitely visit Vic's place on the regular. It was the Alternate Universe episodes and characters I never liked. I skip those episodes.
I owe James Darren and his Vic Fontaine character for getting me interested in that musical genre, which led to my buying a Frank Sinatra CD in May 2004. (His and Avery Brooks' duet did the magic.) The mirror universe Vic was insane, as was the MU generally. I watch those episodes to be fascinated by the Intendant.
You could get James Darren's own CDs too Mirror Vic was weird, but we didn't have much time to get to know him.
I'm glad to see so much love for Vic. Usually whenever he is brought up here, the haters come out of the woodwork (I realize the night is young). I loved him. I thought he helped loosen things up on the show even further, which was a good thing. I prefer the fact that DS9 embraced things like this and serialized them or brought even seemingly minor guest characters back again and again. Using something off-the-wall like this to show how the crew was bonding socially was to me rather genius. And bringing it back again and again struck me as more realistic than boxing things up episodically. DS9 certainly embraced both episodic and serial(ish) formats - it was sort of a hybrid that found itself over time, which to me is part of the charm of the series. I liked that Vic was part of it. I agree with someone who posted earlier - it would have been neat to see him earlier in the series. But I think the point he came in was good in a way, because the marriage of serious and silly with his character I think was sort of symbolic of the show, its actors and its characters really loosening up by this point in the series. It worked for me. The whole MU Vic thing is something that doesn't bother me at all. It gave me a laugh and I moved on. Cinderella's glass slipper should have disappeared at midnight along with everything else - now that's something that bothers me.
I, too, credit Vic Fontaine--not even James Darren but the character Vic himself--for getting me into this style of music. I was aware of it, of course, but never paid much attention to it. I love Vic and all his episodes and wish there were more! I bought James Darren's "This One's From The Heart" and can listen to it all day long. I'll soon be getting another CD of his. Dare I say Vic Fontaine is my favorite DS9 character?
A Vic Fontaine holosuite as a business on the promenade is an intriguing idea, and there are valid reasons for setting it up. Once the program was running continuously (post Paper Moon) that would give Quark one less holosuite to rent out. IT WOULD CUT INTO HIS PROFITS. (Sorry--I was channeling Quark for a moment there.) So Quark would be OK with having it moved offsite. Sisko would recognize that it would be good for morale, and be in favor of it. Because it's a holosuite it wouldn't take up a lot of physical space...Sounds like a good idea to me.
I actually think Vic came in at the perfect time, when the characters are so deeply entrenched in the War that they needed that - and perhaps by extension the show needed that - light touch to bond and take them away from the horrors of the real world. I loved him as an addition.
Never really liked him, through no fault of his own, nothing wrong with the character itself. Though I can understand the need for an escape from the ugly realities of the Dominion war every now and then, I can't really understand why an eclectic bag of 24th century aliens and humans would all choose to gather around and unwind at some 1962 Las Vegas recreation that to each of them would be far more alien than relocation to Ethiopia would be for most of us. I have nothing with that time period, and I'm a human, born only 10 years later. (But perhaps that's just it, I'm simply not far enough removed though space and time?) Though I must say he was put to very good use in that Nog revalidation ep. But wouldn't establishing Vic Fontaine as a serious competitor to Quark's bar cut even more severely into his profits?
I have a singular obsession with everything from the jet age. So I love seeing that on DS9. It's fun. And I really don't give one whit about the plausibility of 24th-century folks getting into Earth's old Vegas lounge scene. It's no less plausible than everybody in the future being into Shakespeare, 18th-century European classical music and 20th-century American jazz. As far as Quark's profits... if he runs the holosuites, then he can just charge extra for entry into Vic's place. Kor
I think you answered your own question - pure escapism. That whilst being able to provide enough 'home comforts' to be casually recreational by human frame of reference - a bar, music, some interest or excitement when wanted, all without fighting monsters, enduring deprivations or being too weird.
I was going to start my own Vic Fontaine thread but this conveniently popped up. Hate is a strong word but I generally disliked his character. I saw it has having little relevance to the series in general. Instead of Fontaine why couldn't they have had more Ferengi centred episodes?
No objection to the Fontaine character as such. But I think both Fontaine and the Ferengi occupied a tad too much space that could've been otherwise used to flesh out the end of the DW.