🔗 Share this article

The acclaimed creator is making a return to television. The Sopranos visionary is scripting MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the CIA's covert cold war-era mind control program for the premium network.

About the Series

This new venture, initially revealed by industry sources, will be David Chase's first series following the groundbreaking HBO crime series. This intense narrative, based on John Lisle's non-fiction work Project Mind Control, zeroes in on Sidney Gottlieb, known as the "dark magician" who oversaw Project MKUltra, the CIA's clandestine psychedelic program that tested 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.

Research Activities

The scientist directed such experiments in the interest of state safety, to combat the perceived threat of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He's also known 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 potential of controlling the human mind. Some test subjects were willing individuals from the agency, armed forces personnel and university attendees who had knowledge of the nature of the studies. Additional subjects, however, were mental patients, incarcerated persons, drug addicts, and prostitutes coerced or deceived into drug dosages that in some cases left long-term harm.

Creator's Background

Chase earned five Emmys for the Sopranos, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey mafia family broadly acknowledged with starting the golden age of high-quality TV. After the series, starring the deceased James Gandolfini, concluded in 2007, the creator 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 Gandolfini’s son, that premiered in 2021.

Return to Television

His return to TV comes after he stated the era of ambitious TV dramas in some ways shaped by the Sopranos to be a "temporary phase" that is now over. Speaking to a major publication for the show’s 25th anniversary, the septuagenarian asserted that he had been instructed to "simplify" his screenplays in meetings with executives and advised against producing television that was too complex.

He attributed that view in part to his encounter trying to make a show with the writer Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who finds herself in federal protection. In numerous meetings with executives, he noted, they were told "the harsh reality" that it was not straightforward enough. "What audience is this targeting?" 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 added. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”