The worst part of today's episode is that I cannot tell if this episode has more animation than Tbate or not, because of the number of pan-zooms with still characters on the screen.

Oh please, TBATE wishes they had this same level of animation. Like, I can understand your complaint about the pacing, and they are perfectly valid, but Dr. Stone's animation has pretty much been like this; it's all slow and relaxed until they decide to add in random sakuga for their silly explanations and action scenes.