I don't know about the video but the Sci. Am. article makes it pretty clear that what they are doing is presenting a brief synthesis of the most current research in several fields, concerned with the origins of life, as a hypothetical scenario.
Szostak and Ricardo writes:
The actual nature of the first organisms and the exact circumstances of the origin of life may be forever lost to science. But research can at least help us understand what is possible.
...
We may never know the exact details of early evolution, but here is a plausible sequence of some of the major events that led from the first protocell to DNA-based cells such as bacteria.
The article is littered with possiblys, coulds, mights and mays, all caveats suggesting the hypothetical nature of the scenario.
There is some wishful thinking in there ...
If we assume for the moment that the gaps in our understanding of the chemistry of life's origin will someday be filled
... but on the whole everything they present has solid experimental evidence supporting it as a
plausible mechanism, not necessarily what actually happened. Without a time machine that may be the best we can hope for.
TTFN,
WK