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David Chase is making a comeback to the small screen. The Sopranos creator will write MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the CIA's secret Cold War period mind control program for HBO.

Exploring the Series

The project, initially revealed by entertainment insiders, will be David Chase's initial TV project following the era-defining HBO mob drama. The dramatic thriller, inspired by John Lisle's book "Project Mind Control", focuses on the notorious scientist, known as the “black sorcerer” who oversaw the MKUltra initiative, the CIA's clandestine hallucinogen experiments that administered hallucinogenic drugs, hypnotic techniques, and physical coercion on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from the early 1950s until it was halted in the early 1970s.

The Experiments

Gottlieb directed such experiments in the name of national security, to counter the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He's also known as the inadvertent father of the psychedelic movement, as he introduced the substance to the CIA in the 1950s, in an effort to investigate the possibilities of controlling the human mind. Some test subjects were volunteers from the CIA, armed forces personnel and university attendees who had knowledge of the nature of the studies. Additional subjects, on the other hand, were psychiatric inmates, incarcerated persons, substance abusers, and sex workers coerced or misled into substance administration that in certain instances resulted in long-term harm.

Chase's Legacy

Chase won multiple Emmy Awards for the Sopranos, a complex drama about a New Jersey-based crime syndicate broadly acknowledged with ushering in the golden age of “prestige” television. After the series, starring the late James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, Chase has primarily concentrated on movie projects. He authored, helmed, and produced the 2012 movie "Not Fade Away". He also co-wrote and produced "The Many Saints of Newark", a prequel to The Sopranos featuring Gandolfini’s son, that premiered in 2021.

Return to Television

His return to television comes after he declared the period of sophisticated television series in part defined by the Sopranos to be a “blip” that is now over. In an interview with a leading newspaper for the series' quarter-century milestone, the 78-year-old asserted that he had been instructed to “dumb down” his screenplays in discussions with studio heads and advised against producing TV content that was overly intricate.

He linked that view in partly to his experience trying to make a show with the writer Hannah Fidell about a high-end sex worker who finds herself in federal protection. In multiple discussions with executives, he noted, they were informed "the harsh reality" that it was too complex. “Who is this all really for?” he remarked. “I guess the stockholders?”

"It appears we are disoriented, and viewers struggle to concentrate, hence we cannot create content that is overly logical, engaging, and demands focus from the audience," he added. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”