In anticipation of Mad Men’s fifth season finale this Sunday on AMC, Christine Hall, Director of Communications of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and fan, talks to Joseph Planta about the show, its impact and the storylines and characters.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at TheCommentary.ca.

Mad Men, the show revolving around Jon Hamm’s portrayal of Don Draper, a creative director at a Manhattan advertising agency in the 1960s, ends its fifth season this Sunday night. It’s a riveting and fascinating program. A lot of people think so too. The season premiere in March had some 3.5 million viewers, the highest in the series run. The Twitter chatter on Sunday night is maddening if you haven’t seen the episode yet, and come Monday, the online discussion on sundry recap blogs is time consuming in their detail. The writers at the AV Club, Slate, New York magazine, Rolling Stone, Salon, the New York Times, and a few more I’m forgetting, are wonderfully pedantic, thorough, and thoughtful. We’ll look at the season that was, with a view to what we’re expecting Sunday night at 10.00pm Eastern, 7.00pm Pacific, on AMC. Joining me today is Christine Hall. She is the director of communications at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank. She’s a Mad Men fan and comes highly recommended. She served as a policy analyst for Steve Forbes when he was running for the presidency in 2000, and Mark Sanford, when he was a congressman. She was also a reporter for CNS News. It’ll be interesting to get her perspective. The website for the institute is www.cei.org. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Christine Hall; Ms. Hall, good morning.

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