Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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XYZpdq said:
At least everybody called out him on being a no fun asshole over it.

The local jazz station plays some of his stuff. One time I heard the jock mention "oh hey he was in Star Trek blahblahblah".
But yeah, on paper shoehorning in a Vegas crooner based on the then-hot trend should have been the worst thing since the Space Hippies, but they made it work a lot better than it had any right to be.
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I think Darren was the key to making that work. They cast a triple threat with him. He could act, sing and lived in the era he was portraying. He had plenty of authenticity to bring to the role.

Vic Fontaine: The band is threatening to quit.
Quark: They can't quit. They're holograms.
Vic Fontaine: They don't know that!
 
YankeeTrader said:
I think Darren was the key to making that work. They cast a triple threat with him. He could act, sing and lived in the era he was portraying. He had plenty of authenticity to bring to the role.

Vic Fontaine: The band is threatening to quit.
Quark: They can't quit. They're holograms.
Vic Fontaine: They don't know that!
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Another reason they managed to make him a good addition to the show was the fact they busted their ass trying to justify writing him into the plot, like the episode after Nog got his leg blown off, where Nog decided to withdraw from the world and Vic played a role in getting Nog out of his injury induced PTSD.

The creators blatantly admitted they liked Vic so much they kept him around as much as they could get away with, but they did it so well and managed to keep the story from getting derailed by his presence it's really hard to complain.
 
Cynical said:
Another reason they managed to make him a good addition to the show was the fact they busted their ass trying to justify writing him into the plot, like the episode after Nog got his leg blown off, where Nog decided to withdraw from the world and Vic played a role in getting Nog out of his injury induced PTSD.

The creators blatantly admitted they liked Vic so much they kept him around as much as they could get away with, but they did it so well and managed to keep the story from getting derailed by his presence it's really hard to complain.
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That Nog story was I think my favorite that guy did. I never imagined i'd be rooting for a Ferengi , but DS9 is a magical place.
I'm glad the creators kept Vic around. He added some class to the joint.
 
I was going to save this for a DS9 season seven rant I've been planning , but I might as well get this out of the way now since we're on the subject of Vic Fontaine. Most of this is a subjective point anyway.

Here's why I think Vic Fontaine was a bad addition to the show:

I don't like Frank Sinatra-style jazz and swing music. Yes, I know Sinatra was a great singer and a musical icon, but I don't like his music or his music style. Sorry, but that's just me. And that's the problem with making music a big part of a show - music is very subjective. Imagine this: I'm a big fan of R.E.M. and if I'd had my way they would've had an R.E.M.-style band instead of Vic Fontaine. That would be great wouldn't it? Well, some people (heathens I call them, but that's just me) don't like R.E.M. so for them, interrupting the show to have Michael Stipe sing "Radio Free Europe" is just going to be an annoyance. That's how I felt every time Vic sang on the show. Half the time it felt like it was just in there to pad out episodes that ran short or save the writers having to think up new scenes.

None of this would be a problem if it was a one-off thing, or in the background. But that's not what happened. Not only was Vic Fontaine brought back multiple times - he was the focal point of several episodes. And Vic as a character isn't all that great either because he's just an archetype. "It's Only a Paper Moon" was a great episode, but that was more down to its focus on Nog's character rather than having anything to do with Vic. They could easily have done that episode without him.

Also, I felt like Vic was just a result of the writers' self-indulgence and storytelling excesses gone too far. It was seriously cringeworthy when he pulled Sisko up on stage at the end of "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" just so they could have Avery Brooks sing a duet with James Darren. The fact the song they picked was "The Best is Yet to Come", preceding the absolutely craptastic "Final Chapter" story arc just made things worse and reeked of arrogance and overconfidence.

So yeah, not a Vic fan.
 
TheImportantFart said:
I was going to save this for a DS9 season seven rant I've been planning , but I might as well get this out of the way now since we're on the subject of Vic Fontaine. Most of this is a subjective point anyway.

Here's why I think Vic Fontaine was a bad addition to the show:

I don't like Frank Sinatra-style jazz and swing music. Yes, I know Sinatra was a great singer and a musical icon, but I don't like his music or his music style. Sorry, but that's just me. And that's the problem with making music a big part of a show - music is very subjective. Imagine this: I'm a big fan of R.E.M. and if I'd had my way they would've had an R.E.M.-style band instead of Vic Fontaine. That would be great wouldn't it? Well, some people (heathens I call them, but that's just me) don't like R.E.M. so for them, interrupting the show to have Michael Stipe sing "Radio Free Europe" is just going to be an annoyance. That's how I felt every time Vic sang on the show. Half the time it felt like it was just in there to pad out episodes that ran short or save the writers having to think up new scenes.

None of this would be a problem if it was a one-off thing, or in the background. But that's not what happened. Not only was Vic Fontaine brought back multiple times - he was the focal point of several episodes. And Vic as a character isn't all that great either because he's just an archetype. "It's Only a Paper Moon" was a great episode, but that was more down to its focus on Nog's character rather than having anything to do with Vic. They could easily have done that episode without him.

Also, I felt like Vic was just a result of the writers' self-indulgence and storytelling excesses gone too far. It was seriously cringeworthy when he pulled Sisko up on stage at the end of "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" just so they could have Avery Brooks sing a duet with James Darren. The fact the song they picked was "The Best is Yet to Come", preceding the absolutely craptastic "Final Chapter" story arc just made things worse and reeked of arrogance and overconfidence.

So yeah, not a Vic fan.
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That's a fair argument. He was an indulgence of the writers, by their own admission, and while they tried their best to blunt the character whoring by trying to make him somewhat necessary to some episodes, most of the time they were just using him as filler as you mentioned.
 
Cynical said:
That's a fair argument. He was an indulgence of the writers, by their own admission, and while they tried their best to blunt the character whoring by trying to make him somewhat necessary to some episodes, most of the time they were just using him as filler as you mentioned.
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I'd also like to offer that the music they used could be considered 'standards' that are somewhat timeless. Also it's fairly upbeat and neutral. A nice contrast to the darkness of the war with the Founders. REM on the other hand would probably sound out of place more than 'Come Fly With Me' which has been covered for decades. Just a thought based on my own observations.
 
You know, if you ignore all of the religious shit in Season 7 it really wasn't that bad. I even liked the finale. At least, everything except the actual ending.
It's kind of sad, if they kept the wormhole aliens as curious non-corporeal lifeforms with no sense of time then this shit would be really great. And you know if Odo didn't leave DS9 like some fag boy. And if the female changeling didn't suddenly have a change of heart because "muh link". And if Gul Dukat didn't live beyond Waltz. And if Sisko wasn't literally Christ and Dukat the Antichrist. And if the Pah-Wraiths just were never introduced and the fucking finale ended at Vic Fontaine's program. I mean fuck, that was literally a perfect ending right there, "This may be the last time we're all together. But no matter what the future holds, no matter how far we travel, a part of us - a very important part - will always remain here, on Deep Space Nine."
BOOM fucking done, what a nice thing to end the series on, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Literally garbage tier religious bullshit has to be shoved in for what purpose? In the trash that shit goes, my God what a disappointment. If they cut out all of that shit, DS9 would be so close to being perfect, please shoot the flaming faggot who decided this was good writing and deserved to be in the show.
 
XYZpdq said:
Spot is a timelord, that's why he keeps changing form and gender.
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And on the subject.....(jokingly), the Borg are a rip off of Cybermen, Guinan comes from a very long lived race of observers much like Timelords, and the episode they introduce the Borg is called "Q Who".

I know, coincidence as fuck, but fun to kick around.
 
XYZpdq said:
Tomb of the Cybermen is one of the best Borg episodes ever.
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I just came back from lunch after hitting up a used bookstore. Picked up a shitton of old school Who books. New Adventures, reference books from the early 80's.
 
Trying to watch a bit of Voyager. It's surprisingly boring despite taking place on a ship that was blasted 75 years away from the Alpha Quadrant. Gonna check out the TOS movies if I can find them for free, they're not on Netflix and I don't feel like paying/pirating.
 
YankeeTrader said:
And on the subject.....(jokingly), the Borg are a rip off of Cybermen, Guinan comes from a very long lived race of observers much like Timelords, and the episode they introduce the Borg is called "Q Who".

I know, coincidence as fuck, but fun to kick around.
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What's really funny is they had an officially made comic crossover with Star Trek and Doctor Who.

In it, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory team up with the Enterprise-D crew against a Cybermen/Borg alliance.
 
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Cynical said:
What's really funny is they had an officially made comic crossover with Star Trek and Doctor Who.

In it, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory team up with the Enterpirse-D crew against a Cybermen/Borg alliance.
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Circle of life
 
GeorgeDaMoose said:
I'm 6 episodes into Voyager and I don't give a shit about any of the main cast, please help.
I want to kill Neelix and whoever plays Kim cannot act for shit.
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I really wish I had some optimism to throw your way. Voyager does have a some good episodes, but they happened far too infrequently. Have you made it to "The 37's" yet?

The Doctor ended up being my favorite character by a wide margin. The Writers hated Kim more than they did O'Brien. Tuvok ends up being alright and the only good thing Neelix does on the show is get on Tuvoks nerves. Not much else.

Hang in there.

Van Darkholme said:
Kinda want a blu-ray release of DS9, are there any plans?
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Nope. They didn't make enough money off the TOS and TNG sets. Word came down that they've already disbanded the restoration team.

Breaks my heart.
 
Doing DS9 and Voyager in HD would probably never have been practical anyway, given that the latter half of DS9 and almost all of Voyager switched to exclusively using CGI for visual effects, which was rendered in SD and would have to be recreated from scratch. And the cost of recreating those huge Dominion War fleets from DS9 or the Borg Unicomplex from Voyager in HD would make the bean-counters cry.

GeorgeDaMoose said:
I'm 6 episodes into Voyager and I don't give a shit about any of the main cast, please help.
I want to kill Neelix and whoever plays Kim cannot act for shit.
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Honestly, you wouldn't miss a hell of a lot if you skipped all the way to the final episode of the third season, "Scorpion," which is where the show starts to become somewhat watchable. Though the "Future's End" two-parter earlier in that season is pretty decent, and has an important character development for the Doctor.
 
HarryHowler said:
Doing DS9 and Voyager in HD would probably never have been practical anyway, given that the latter half of DS9 and almost all of Voyager switched to exclusively using CGI for visual effects, which was rendered in SD and would have to be recreated from scratch. And the cost of recreating those huge Dominion War fleets from DS9 or the Borg Unicomplex from Voyager in HD would make the bean-counters cry.



Honestly, you wouldn't miss a hell of a lot if you skipped all the way to the final episode of the third season, "Scorpion," which is where the show starts to become somewhat watchable. Though the "Future's End" two-parter earlier in that season is pretty decent, and has an important character development for the Doctor.
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For me the funniest part of Voyager was the holographic Doctor being a more believable and realistic character than most of the rest of the crew.
 
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