It’s pretty well-known now that “Mad Men” creator-writer-producer Matthew Weiner wrote and co-produced “The Sopranos.” That he learned his lessons well from that show has been rather spectacularly proven as Season Two of “Mad Men” commences, to wit:

Promotion: As good as “The Sopranos” was, a fan had to get used to the media running the same damn article about the show’s cast each season: how none of the cast knew what was going to happen on the show from episode to episode until they got the script, and how all of them feared getting a script or a phone call from writer-producer David Chase learning they were to be “whacked” on the next show to shoot. (As it turned out, none of the main “Sopranos” cast were whacked, save Adriana, until the final season.) Cast members said that they always check the cast list to see if they are listed on each script they receive.

Well, the “Mad Men” cast members in articles last week told us that none of them know what is going to happen on the show from episode to episode until they get the script, and one cast member, John Slattery (whose character had heart attacks last season) says he always checks the cast list to see if he is still listed on each script he receives.

As an adjunct to these “Sopranos promotion templates,” Weiner and his cast are, of course, sworn to secrecy. Which they should be careful about: “The Sopranos” cast got downright haughty about saying nothing at annual critics junkets…and the critics turned on them.

Story timeline breaks. “Mad Men Season One” closed on Thanksgiving, 1960. Season Two begins on Valentine’s Day, 1962. Matthew Weiner said such a time jump allows new plots and characters to be introduced “in progress” (Don has a new secretary) and allows other storylines to tantalizingly disappear (Where is Peggy’s baby? Where is Don’s Jewish lover?)

That’s straight from “The Sopranos” where, after the season in which Adrianna was killed, we jumped a year and found her fiancée, Christopher, already with a new, prettier fiancée.

Season Two Opening Musical Montage. Season Two of “The Sopranos” began with a montage of all the various characters being reintroduced to the Sinatra song “It Was a Very Good Year.” Season Two of “Mad Men” began with a montage of all the various characters being introduced to the Chubby Checker song “Let’s Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer.”)

Season Premiere Episode Aimlessness: From Season Two on, “The Sopranos” was famous for having Season Premiere episodes in which the main plotline didn’t appear, but rather, we eased into a reintroduction of our main characters with little vignettes and clues to new developments. Then the storyline kicked in after a couple of episodes (example: Steve Buscemi didn’t appear on his season of “The Sopranos” until the second episode of that season.) The first episode of Season Two of “Mad Men” had a similar sketchy, minor-key feel.

Note: “The Sopranos” was famous for unleashing climactic action in the second-to-last episode of each season, and then “easing out” with a final episode containing a serious development. So did “Mad Men” in its first season.

Finally, Matthew Weiner seems to have learned one lesson from “The Sopranos” which is leading him to break with “Sopranos” traditions.

Weiner told reporters that “Mad Men” will unfold in two-year seasonal jumps because “I’m not on a ten year plan, I’m on a five year plan” for the series to last. So Weiner is aiming “Mad Men” to be a five season show.

Methinks Weiner remembers that “The Sopranos” peaked at the end of Season Five (with the deaths of Adrianna and Buscemi’s character) and then split into a greed-based “Season 6A and Season 6B” which, together, were unfocussed, wasteful of valuable storytelling time on subplots, and badly wrapped up a the end of each “mini-season” (an anti-climactic Xmas party at the end of Season 6A; underthought endings for Melfi and for Tony at the end of Season 6B.)

“Mad Men” looks good for a five season run. That’s really all the time we’ll want to spend with these damaged people (honestly, the ratings right now don't have "Sopranos" strength for much longer, anyway), and the “every-two-years season spacing” should end the series in the perfect year: 1968, when America reached its revolutionary peak of the counterculture, assassinations, war, and riots…and when Richard Nixon, the “Mad Men’s” losing Presidential client of 1960, finally won the Presidency. Will Sterling Cooper represent Nixon again?