I thought Rollye was great. Here's my critique:
• Intro
The theme song ran for an unusually long stretch with no sign of Rollye, but this could be attributed to the technical problems she described at the top of the show. Forgiveable!
• News Segement (20 minutes)
Read through hurriedly and, frankly, boring to listen to. Her intro to the news was a mention of "reading the news at the top of the show, following the format of GN", but I don't think it was necessary for her to follow in those footsteps, especially considering that the first segment of the show immediately follows the local/syndicated news.
She read a story on a lottery-gone-bad in Roswell, and another on China and their not-fit-for-human-consumption exports, all good stuff. But her delivery was rushed, and if there was one thing where I started to compare GN and Rollye, it would be only in GN's more relaxed delivery of news reports. Again, forgiveable
• Callers and Interview
Breath of fresh air, to be sure. During her first few phone calls she seemed to still be getting her feet wet, but at about 15 to the top of the first hour, Rollye came into her own. Very much in the spirit of Art Bell, and so unlike the way C2C is handled during the week, she engaged her callers and the guest! With a great vocabulary to pave the way she asked great questions, showed occasional skepticism (in a friendly way), and didn't pander to or deflect every potentially "out there" statement.
I don't know enough about Rollye to judge whether or not she has the background to be able to discuss subjects related to the paranormal, extra-terrestrial, or conspiracy theories as Art did. Certainly GN has only a marginal ability to discuss any of these subjects, though by this point he's familiar with the nomenclature. Then again, from what I can see, GN's show is heavily scripted (or heavily prepped) and thus he doesn't have to be a paranormal/UFO/conspiracy scholar to conduct the show. I get the feeling that she has a vast knowledge of U.S. and world history, and she can stand on her own two feet and converse with people with aplomb; rarely does she come across as stumped or non-plussed on her regular radio program. So, were we as an audience given a choice between Rollye and GN, given the same prep tools as GN has, I'd vote for Rollye in a heartbeat to be able to bring back to C2C some of its former glory.
