I think that is one of the absolute flaws of modern spin-offs.
A narrative text is confined to its cultural and temporal context. You can re-imagine it, update it, try to view it through its own contextual lens/lenses. But when you try to turn a text into a coherent, linear, history retrospectively, you end up working too hard. Plus, you end up with so many contrivances.
I am tired of multiverse crap.
Did anyone come down so hard on the film version of Frankenstein that deviated so drastically from the source material? Maybe that's a bad example...
Doctor Who is probably a better example. Try to explain some crap, but just move forward and when you get a Tom Baker or a David Tennant, just run with it!
I guess I am a hardcore TOS Trekkie... I don't care as long as you put out a good product. Make me sit through 3 seasons of shitty Picard and I'm pissed. Make a good show that has Spock and Chapel fucking sideways on a ringed planetoid somewhere and I'll be okay with it (as long as it is smart, well-written, and entertaining).
The best episode of Doctor Who ever (probably), "Blink," didn't really have to be a Doctor Who episode at all, did it? That's the great joy of episodic fiction. Episodic Sci-Fi removes all constraints. The Trekkies and Trekker bitching minority will be just that. I loved the stupid dress-up episode last season (when almost everyone else hated it). Keep me entertained and be smart about it. It's fiction. No one is renaming 1984 to 2084...