I've been reading "So Say We All" and this was literally Ron Moore's and David Eick's foundational premise for nuBSG. They were so burnt out on The Template of Berman-era Trek, they basically created the entire show as a f-u. Fascinating read.
While I haven't read that book, that much was very clear from BSG the show itself: It was essentially the
anti-Star Trek Star Trek. Pretty much
every concious decision was the exact opposite: Flawed characters, the bridge not focused on a big screen, a mission briefing room instead of a ready-room, a highly hirarchycal crew structure...
But at the same time, they (unintentionally) carried over
a lot of Star Trek stuff: It's not like, say, "Lost in Space", it's clearly an alternate, hyper-realistic take on a Star Trek-like premise.
And I loved it!
That being said: I think the main reason it worked on BSG was because it WASN'T Star Trek, but it's OWN, individual IP. All the stuff they did on BSG would have been greatly out of place in a new Star Trek show. Ironically, I think the way to "update" Star Trek is probably closer to what JJ. Abrams did. He preserved a lot of the "siliness", wacky adventures, colors, quirky characters. Really, the only reason I didn't like his reboot series is that J.J. Abrams can't think of an original story or arc or themes if his life depended on it. But all his production and scene direction choices were actually really, really good.
The irony in all of that being, that I deeply love BSG. And don't really care for JJ Abrams reboot Trek. But that I still, at the same time, think that any new Star Trek
show should have been much closer in style to the J.J. Abrams movies, but instead they tried to ape BSG, which IMO didn't really work for Trek.
Found it interesting the early screen-test uniforms had ribbed collars like the pilot-era and of course the muted color scheming. (photo of early Saru makeup test)
Man, I'm
so glad that's not what we ended up with.... Really, the final Saru we got is actually one of my favourite Star Trek aliens
already, and one of the reasons why I think the showrunners overall
do "get" Star Trek, even though they wrote a lot of crap scripts during the first season.
But seeing this? Great design for an alien of the week. But I can't imagine that make-up being applied to a functioning recurring
character on the show at all...