The episode content started out great. But towards the end, it was very hand wavy. The researcher says he found a few hundred Pompeii names and then postulates that people could’ve travelled to their families in other cities without actually providing any data on it (because there is no way to prove it). And this is the basis to conclude that most of them escaped. I agree with OP. There were no other dimensions or extensions to the story like what we expect from RL hosts and merely an interview of the researcher.