All his episodes felt like the showrunners were pulling a “Sandler” and just hooking up their out of work friend that used to have a hell of a lounge act.
He is a good actor and singer, but using him so much was just freaking weird. 100% filler in my opinion, even though they did some charector development in his episodes.
What we used to call a “bottle episode” younger people now call “filler” as they’ve grown up in a world where shows are designed to be binged as a whole in a few days, not slowly eased out over 24 weeks of the year.
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.