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The acclaimed creator is making a return to the small screen. The Sopranos visionary will write MKUltra, a mini-series focusing on the CIA's covert cold war-era mind control program for HBO.

Exploring the Series

This new venture, initially revealed by entertainment insiders, will be David Chase's initial TV project following the groundbreaking HBO mob drama. This intense narrative, inspired by John Lisle's book "Project Mind Control", focuses on the notorious scientist, known as the “black sorcerer” who led Project MKUltra, the agency's clandestine psychedelic program that tested hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, and torture on willing and unwilling subjects from the early 1950s until it was halted in 1973.

The Experiments

The scientist oversaw these tests in the interest of state safety, to combat the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He's also known as the inadvertent father of the LSD counterculture, as he brought the substance to the agency in the mid-20th century, in an attempt to investigate 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 experiments. Additional subjects, on the other hand, were mental patients, incarcerated persons, substance abusers, and sex workers coerced or misled into drug dosages that in certain instances left permanent damage.

Chase's Legacy

David Chase won five Emmys for his hit series, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey mafia family widely credited with starting the golden age of high-quality TV. After the series, featuring the late James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, the creator has mostly focused on feature films. 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.

Return to Television

His return to TV comes after he stated the era of sophisticated television series in some ways defined by the Sopranos to be a “blip” that is now finished. Speaking to a major publication for the show’s 25th anniversary, the 78-year-old asserted that he had been instructed to “dumb down” his screenplays in meetings with studio heads and warned against producing television that was too complex.

Chase attributed that perspective in partly to his experience 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 informed "the harsh reality" that it was not straightforward enough. “Who is this all really for?” he said. “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 continued. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”