Detract

Further elaboration or ornament would only detract from the perfection of its simplicity.

I'm sorry; I didn't mean to detract from what you were saying.

I hope that her success doesn't detract from theirs.

The Conan O’Brien-penned half-hour has the capacity to rip our collective hearts out the way the cute, funny bad girl next door does to Bart when she reveals that her new boyfriend is Jimbo Jones, but the show keeps shying away from genuine emotion in favor of jokes that, while overwhelmingly funny, detract from the poignancy and the emotional intimacy of the episode.

That calumnious critic […] / Detracting what laboriously we do.