I've already seen dozens of first season episodes over the years, but except for the first five, I've never binged through them. You can clearly tell that there wasn't much support from Price Authority (as the "old' Cullen era described it) compared to later on, from the same avocado green refrigerator/freezer, wood grain TV, and of course with the Chevy Vega appearing just about every show for the first year. Even the grocery products weren't as varied with the Creamettes and Rice A Roni appearing multiple times in Grocery Game. If anything, the Cullen version started with a bigger bang than TNPiR did with a bigger variety of prizes and a more energetic host off the bat. Bob sort of grew into the show just like early Drew did, and even Drew's version had a lot of repetition (by 2007 standards) of the same pricing games in the same show being played. That said, even in these early stages, you still had some variety of pricing games in addition to the One Bids, which the Cullen version only provided on a few bonus segments, including a lot of general knowledge-type games. Of course, a lot of the cues were revolutionary for their time when many soap operas still used organ music, and this will only get better as the later packages get introduced, starting with the "Narz Concentration" package sometime around the start of the second season.
Bob had yet to start his opening monologue or little chit-chats with the contestants which added a new dimension to knowing the real stars of the show, and that sort of makes the show feel stale when Bill Cullen had been chatting for years on the original version. Overall, the first season just feels like a big work in progress that would have to compete with a dying Concentration, daytime movie, or other syndicated fare. That said, with school in session, most of the viewing audience, like the Cullen daytime version, were housewives and retired people, so the prizes and contestants generally reflect their tastes who tend to be more sedate. But I didn't pick up GSN until the fall of 1997 around the start of their "Dark Period", which was when the channel dropped their half-hour Barker episodes, so seeing these in original broadcast quality is still a nice gift to all of us. In the future, I'd love to see a pattern of having a new set of '80s episodes followed by a new set of '70s episodes just to mix things up, and perhaps make weekends the new home of '70s Price on Pluto. A lot more changed in the show's first decade than it did in the second (and every decade since, with the possible exception of the fourth decade).