Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is the series premiere of the American period drama television series Mad Men. It first aired on July 19, 2007 in the United States on AMC and was written by creator Matthew Weiner and directed by Alan Taylor. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" was budgeted at US$3 million. Production for the episode took place in New York City and Los Angeles. Weiner conceived of the script in 2000 while working as a writer for the television sitcom Becker. Before writing the pilot episode, he studied American literature and cinema of the 1950s and 1960s to get a perspective on American culture during that period. Weiner sent the script to The Sopranos creator David Chase, who recruited Weiner to work with him on The Sopranos. Weiner shelved the project for seven years to focus on Chase's program; interest for Mad Men did not surface until the conclusion of The Sopranos final season. According to the Nielsen Media Research, the episode attained a rating of 1.4 (1.2 million households) upon initial airing. Plot In 1960, in a bar lounge in Manhattan, Don Draper (Jon Hamm), creative director for the advertising agency Sterling Cooper, is facing professional adversity: how to effectively advertise cigarettes in light of the growing public awareness to the dangers of smoking and new government regulations prohibiting the use of false health claims. He seeks input from customers and his girlfriend Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt) but is unable to find a solution, while rejecting the academic research results provided by the company's consulting psychologist that suggests some customers are drawn to smoking not only despite the health risks but because of them, in a collective "death wish" scenario.