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The acclaimed creator is set for a return to television. The Sopranos creator will write MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the Central Intelligence Agency's secret cold war-era mind control program for the premium network.

Exploring the Series

This new venture, initially revealed by industry sources, will be David Chase's first series following the groundbreaking HBO mob drama. The dramatic thriller, inspired by the author's book Project Mind Control, focuses on Sidney Gottlieb, referred to as the “black sorcerer” who led Project MKUltra, the CIA's clandestine hallucinogen experiments that tested psychedelic substances, hypnotic techniques, and torture on willing and unwilling subjects from the early 1950s until it was terminated in the early 1970s.

The Experiments

Gottlieb oversaw these tests in the interest of state safety, to combat the alleged danger of Russian and Chinese mind control methods. He is also regarded as the accidental pioneer of the LSD counterculture, as he introduced the drug to the agency in the 1950s, in an effort to explore the possibilities of manipulating human consciousness. Some test subjects were willing individuals from the agency, armed forces personnel and university attendees who had knowledge of the nature of the studies. Others, on the other hand, were mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and prostitutes coerced or deceived into drug dosages that in certain instances left long-term harm.

Chase's Legacy

David Chase won five Emmys for the Sopranos, a complex drama about a New Jersey-based crime syndicate broadly acknowledged with starting the golden age of “prestige” television. After the series, starring the late James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, Chase has mostly focused on movie projects. He authored, helmed, and produced the 2012 film "Not Fade Away". Additionally, he collaborated on "The Many Saints of Newark", a Sopranos prequel starring Michael Gandolfini, that premiered in 2021.

TV Comeback

His return to television follows he stated the era of sophisticated television series in part defined by his show to be a “blip” that is now over. Speaking to a leading newspaper for the series' quarter-century milestone, the 78-year-old claimed that he had been instructed to "simplify" his screenplays in discussions with executives and warned against producing television that was overly intricate.

Chase attributed that view in part to his encounter trying to make a series with the writer Hannah Fidell about a high-end sex worker who ends up in federal protection. In multiple discussions with executives, he said, they were told "the harsh reality" that it was not straightforward enough. “Who is this all really for?” he said. "Presumably, the investors?"

“We seem to be confused and audiences can’t keep their minds on things, so we can’t make anything that makes too much sense, takes our attention and requires an audience to focus,” he added. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”