Television Review: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Mad Men, S1x01, 2007)

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (S1x01)

Airdate: 19 July 2007

Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Alan Taylor

Running Time: 49 minutes

An argument can be made, and indeed has been persuasively advanced by critics and historians of the medium, that what we now reflexively term the ‘Golden Age of Television’ actually began in the summer of 2007 on the relatively unassuming AMC network with the debut of Mad Men. Its first episode, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, served as the clarion call for a new era of serialised storytelling. This was the first prestigious, high-quality television drama to become a major hit, a trend-setter, and a prolific source of cultural references and internet memes on a global scale, despite not bearing the imprimatur of HBO. That it emerged from the creative mind of Matthew Weiner, a writer who had honed his craft on the final, celebrated seasons of The Sopranos, is perhaps unsurprising. Weiner imported HBO’s novelistic depth and moral complexity to basic cable, effectively democratising the ‘prestige drama’ and proving that the appetite for sophisticated, adult-oriented narrative was not confined to subscription television. The pilot episode, produced in March 2006—a full year before the season’s broadcast—stands as a meticulously crafted manifesto for the series and for the transformative decade of television that would follow.

Mad Men also represented a vanguard for the period drama on mainstream broadcast television, a genre that would flourish in the short term and become a staple of cable and streaming services in the long term. The period chosen was arguably the most fascinating and consequential of the 20th century: the 1960s, a decade marked by tumultuous social, political, and cultural upheaval. The series’ genius lay in its perspective. Rather than focusing on the activists, politicians, or rock stars who typically dominate narratives of the era, it portrayed the change from the original, and often overlooked, vantage point of the American advertising industry. These were the people who, as Weiner suggests, not only reflected the zeitgeist but actively manufactured and commodified it, forging desires and shaping identities in the post-war consumer boom. The phrase ‘Mad Men’ itself, a semi-ironic term coined (as the opening credits wryly note) by the advertising executives of Madison Avenue, encapsulates this world of clever, cynical, and deeply compromised individuals who sell happiness while often being devoid of it.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is set in March 1960, and from its very first frame, it immerses the viewer in a world profoundly alien to contemporary sensibilities. The protagonist, Donald Draper (Jon Hamm), Creative Director of the fictional Sterling Cooper agency, is shown in a haze of cigarette smoke in a dimly lit bar. Everyone is smoking and drinking; it is a world where such habits are not merely acceptable but are the essential lubricants of business and social life. More subtly, it is a world still governed by unspoken but rigid racial boundaries. Draper’s attempt to engage an African American waiter in casual conversation about his smoking preferences is almost immediately curtailed by his companion, who fears the waiter is ‘bothering’ Don. This brief exchange economically establishes two key themes: the pervasive, casual racism of the era, and Draper’s unique, almost anthropological detachment. His interest is not social but professional—he is researching for the agency’s most pressing account, Lucky Strike cigarettes, a task fraught with difficulty given emerging medical evidence linking smoking to cancer and new regulations banning health claims in advertising.

The remainder of the episode unfolds over a single day at Sterling Cooper, a microcosm of early 1960s America. Don is assigned a new secretary, Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), who immediately becomes the object of lascivious speculation and harassment from the agency’s young executives. Men like the account executive Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), television department head Harry Crane (Rich Sommer), and copywriter Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) view the female staff as a perk of the job, a sentiment openly reinforced by the office’s strict social hierarchy. Peggy is initiated into this world by office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), whose stunning appearance belies a sharp, pragmatic intelligence. Joan’s guidance is a masterclass in survival, warning Peggy about the dangers of office romances and implicitly teaching her how to navigate a workplace where a woman’s primary currency is her looks and her compliance. This dynamic is the bedrock of the series’ critique: Sterling Cooper relies on a small army of women—secretaries, operators, cleaners—who perform the essential day-to-day labour while occasionally providing sexual favours to the men who monopolise all executive power. Sexism, apart from being prevalent, is the operational system.

Before this office day begins, however, we see Draper in his other life, leaving the apartment of his part-time girlfriend, Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt), an aspiring artist. This establishes his pattern of infidelity and his compartmentalised existence. His day at the office is initially fraught with failure. Before the crucial Lucky Strike meeting, the agency must pitch to a potential new client, Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), the owner of a Jewish department store. The scene is a masterpiece of cringe-inducing awkwardness and institutional anti-Semitism. Senior partner Roger Sterling (John Slattery) is so anxious about their lack of ‘Jewish credentials’ that he parades a token Jewish employee, David Coen, into the meeting. Don, arrogant and unprepared, dismisses Menken’s business acumen and storms out after a humiliating exchange. It is a rare moment where Draper’s famed charisma fails him, revealing the brittle arrogance beneath. He later patches things up with Menken over lunch, displaying a more genuine, persuasive side, but the damage to his aura is noted.

The Lucky Strike meeting nearly ends in disaster, primarily due to the intervention of the vapid, entitled accounts executive Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser). In a clumsy attempt to assert dominance over Don, Pete resurrects a discarded note of Draper’s and proposes a campaign based on the ‘death wish’, horrifying the clients, Lee Garner Sr. (John Cullum) and his son. On the brink of losing the account, Draper has his ‘eureka’ moment. In a display of the persuasive alchemy that would become the series’ hallmark, he argues that since all cigarettes are essentially the same, advertising must be based on ‘mere differences’ between brands. He seizes on Lucky Strike’s manufacturing process—‘It’s toasted’—and transforms this mundane fact into a resonant slogan of reassurance and distinction. It is a brilliant save, a moment of pure creative genius that simultaneously saves the account, reasserts Draper’s authority, and offers a meta-commentary on the show itself: Mad Men is about finding profound meaning in the seemingly trivial. Don then brutally chastises Pete for stealing his ideas and coldly dismisses a tentative advance from Peggy, reinforcing his emotional inaccessibility.

The episode’s denouement follows the characters into the night. Pete, drunk and embittered after a bachelor party at a strip club, turns up at Peggy’s apartment, where she reluctantly lets him in—a decision fraught with future consequence. Meanwhile, Don takes the train to Ossining, New York, arriving late at his pristine suburban home. He is greeted by his seemingly perfect wife, Betty (January Jones), a former model, and his two sleeping children. This final shot, of Draper standing in the doorway of a home that represents the ultimate American dream, is haunting. He is an outsider in his own life, a ghost at the feast of his own making. The perfection is mere illusion, foreshadowing the secrets and pathologies that will unravel in the seasons to come.

Directed with a superb eye for period detail by HBO veteran Alan Taylor, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is an exceptionally effective pilot. Its plot is minimal; there is a lack of traditional narrative. Yet this is its strength. Rather than relying on melodramatic events, it dedicates its runtime to immersive world-building and character introduction. The viewer is not told about the 1960s; they are submerged in them. The authenticity is not merely sartorial (the suits, hats, and dresses are flawless) but behavioural. The attitudes towards drinking (whisky in the office at 11 a.m.), smoking (ubiquitous and unchecked), and sex (as a transactional office commodity) are presented not as quaint historical details but as the very fabric of reality for these characters. The most potent world-building is in the depiction of a strict social hierarchy based on race, class, ethnicity, religion, and, most damningly, sex. The world of Sterling Cooper is one where racism, sexism, and bigotry are not merely institutionalised but are the casually accepted mechanics of daily life.

The episode also sows the seeds of the central professional conflict: between the flawed but authentically talented Don Draper—a man who has crafted himself from a traumatic past and wartime experience—and the vain, buffoonish Pete Campbell, whose position is entirely a product of privileged birth. Jon Hamm’s performance is a revelation, making Draper compellingly sympathetic despite his myriad moral failings. He conveys a deep, melancholic intelligence and a perceptiveness that sets him apart from his peers. Don’s pitch scenes are the most attractive part of the series. They are riveting theatrical set-pieces where language becomes a tool for manipulation and revelation. His cynical, yet arguably honest, declaration that ‘love was invented by people like me to sell nylons’ is not just a great television quote; it is the series’ thesis statement, laying bare the existential emptiness at the heart of the consumer dream he helps to sell.

Finally, a seemingly minor scene powerfully encapsulates the era’s restrictive sexual mores. Peggy’s visit to a doctor to obtain a contraceptive device is a quietly devastating moment. The physician, Dr. Walter Emerson (Remys Auberjonois), delivers the diaphragm with snide sarcasm, pointedly noting her unmarried status. It is a stark illustration of how female sexuality was policed by a patronising and judgmental medical establishment, and how the pursuit of sexual agency outside marriage was fraught with shame and difficulty. For Peggy, this device represents not liberation, but a necessary, clandestine tool for navigating the predatory environment she is about to enter.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is a landmark piece of television. It announced Mad Men not as a mere period drama, but as a profound anthropological study of American capitalism, identity, and desire at a pivotal historical moment. It proved that television could be as nuanced, visually arresting, and intellectually demanding as the finest novels or films. By focusing on the advertisers who shaped the dreams of a nation, it provided a uniquely critical lens through which to view the birth of modern America. While it may lack the overt plot mechanics of later prestige dramas, its confidence, atmosphere, and character depth set a new standard.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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