It was great in a vacuum, it just felt like a diversion from the investment the writers had been making in the first 4 seasons.

Same with the Coma seasons. I particularly like Danger Island, but they are all fantastic as individual spinoff shows. But they do nothing to advance the plot that had been so invested in up to that point.

Stuff like Archer and Lana's relationship, Archer's father, Barry, could all have been more developed in that time if they had just stuck to the story they were telling rather than spending 5 seasons faffing around on other stories. Worse yet, we may have gotten more substantial character development out of Malory while Jessica Walter was still alive if they hadn't taken those diversions.