The Andromeda Strain (1971)'s activity

I love a good procedural, so why do I never speak of The Andromeda Strain in the same reverent tones I do other downbeat SF films of the 70s? I think part of it must be that what I like about procedurals is the window into a microverse where I don't understand everything the experts say, but it sounds true. I'm enraptured for however many hours in a world that is not my own, but is nevertheless satisfying. Andromeda, about a space virus that threatens humanity lest this one group of scientists figure out how to stop it has lots of tension and a few shocking moments (the dead town, whatever they did to that monkey with the Human Society apparently standing right there), but Michael Crichton isn't a writer I would go to for SCIENCE, so the whole enterprise comes off more as a dry Doctor Who plot (or by the look of it, Space: 1999) and progressively less interesting. Bob Wise may well propose that the film is derived from declassified documents, because it's often as dull as reading through those. I was ready to give it a better report though, at least until the anti-climactic ending, at which point I threw up my hands in surrender.