I don’t think anyone has a problem with bottle episodes. It’s the bottle episodes specifically starring Vic Fontaine which stretches the premise thin to incredulity that I think people–or at least I–have an issue with. Do another Ferengi or Klingon thing if need be. But attaching such sentiment to a character that the show really really wants you to like doesn’t work for me. Again, he’s a love him or hate him character. At least Ezri’s episodes, while shoehorned, made sense for why they needed to be there if they had to have her as a replacement at all. Vic was just an insert the writers specficially wanted for no good reason.

Most people here are ignoring the main reason: the writers were just a bunch of baseball loving rat pack fans who took their love of those things maybe a little too far. In the case of baseball, we only had Take Me Out to Holosuite to deal with (which is a great episode–provided you like baseball, I suppose). In the case of the rat pack, we inexplicably got Vic Fontaine who you either love or hate. I wouldn’t hate Vic Fontaine so much myself if they didn’t force him to basically take up the space that Quark’s Bar was supposed to be, and for him to be an integral part of the show so late in the series. And yes, the musical numbers take up too much time, if you ask me.

It’s made on the same engine as Skyrim and Fallout 4 so for all intents and purposes this is going to be like any other Bethesda game. So, if people want Fallout 4 in space with procedural worlds and companions then I guess it’ll be what they’re looking for. But my belief is it’s going to feel like a last gen game with a sheen of current gen on top.

Man, I been waiting for this for years. I thought with the way Mastodon grew it’d eventually grow into a wider growth among the fediverse but it seems to happen in fits and starts. Glad to see people are federating too and not all dumping into just the mainline instance.

Next I’d like to see major names move off YouTube and Twitch onto decentralized platforms but that’s gonna take much more to get there, unfortunately.