Mad Men
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
TV Flash files “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” as the hour the catalog opens — Mad Men (2007–2015) on AMC, season 1, episode 1, aired 2007-07-19, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E01: listed hour 1 of 92 in the Mad Men guide, first listed hour of season 1. It aired 2007-07-19 (60 min). No earlier hour is listed in this guide. Next is “Ladies Room” (S01E02).
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: gray flannel under fluorescent light. The office is a fitting room. Style is the plot.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
At an advertising agency in 1960s Manhattan, the creative director has problems coming up with ideas for a tobacco account and crosses swords with the female head of a large department store that she wants to take in a new retail direction.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Smoke Gets in Your Eyes sit in the Mad Men guide?
S01E01 is listed hour 1 of 92 — first listed hour of season 1, season 1 episode 1.
When did Mad Men S01E01 air?
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes aired 2007-07-19 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start Mad Men?
“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” The first hour is the fitting room: gray flannel, fluorescent light, style as character. Do not skip to a “better dressed” season; the argument is the change.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as a decade of clothes learning to tell on their wearers. Madison Avenue is the fitting room; history is the lighting. If you care how prestige television used beauty as pressure instead of wallpaper — gray flannel to a last unguarded smile — this is the collection that still photographs.
The first flash is gray flannel under a cruel office fluorescent — a suit that has not yet learned the decade’s weather. A cigarette is not a prop; it is punctuation. Jon Hamm’s Don Draper enters as a silhouette that will spend seven seasons trying to become a person, which is a very expensive kind of soft launch. Elisabeth Moss’s Peggy, Christina Hendricks’s Joan, January Jones’s Betty, John Slattery’s Roger: the ensemble is a look board that keeps firing people. Style is already the plot. Tessa can have the…
Filed against
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- January Jones as Betty Draper
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