Mikolaj Machowski further explained:
Define $VIEWER or View command in bindings as vim -X --noplugin -c "colorscheme desert" -c "map <F10> :qa!<cr>" It will load vim with desert (just example) colorscheme and F10 will quit vim. Note: you may need to escape ! with \ depending on your shell.
thanks MM, i did not understand your initial advice because i had forgotten about vim keybindings, which i surely should be using more of anyway ;)
bash actually makes noise about more than just !, forcing me to quote the whole thing (which then...) but it does work in (/~/.mc) bindings.