there already IS a "darker and Edgier" thing close to trek. Babaylon Five. Which is why I couldn't stand the thing (thought walt
was deliciously deviled ham in there)
the problem
I see with swapping away from the current format is that half of the people wouldn't "get" it, and the other half would call it
boring. there was all sorts of griping when they did DS9 'cause it wasn't on a ship. the day to day stuff like routine patrols in known space would make insta-flops, S31 would come off as recycling James Bond.
other ideas include
a
planet based piece, which would be compared to DS9 AND called "boring"
a colonial started with civillians, which wouldn't pique interest;
diplomatic BS (everybody's kind of sick of politics right now)
Shipyards and misadventures of engineers (which people wouldn't get the reason for)
a good potential might be watching cadette class adventures, but I suspect guys like me would start comparing it to "saved By The Bell", "buffy", 90210, etc. imagie the cries of "recycled in HIGH SCHOOL"!