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David Chase is making a return to the small screen. The Sopranos creator will write Project MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the Central Intelligence Agency's covert Cold War period mind control program for HBO.

About the Series

This new venture, first reported by industry sources, marks David Chase's first series following the era-defining HBO crime series. The dramatic thriller, inspired by John Lisle's non-fiction work Project Mind Control, zeroes in on Sidney Gottlieb, known as the "dark magician" who oversaw Project MKUltra, the agency's clandestine psychedelic program that administered hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, and physical coercion on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from 1953 until it was terminated in 1973.

Research Activities

The scientist directed such experiments in the name of national security, to combat the alleged danger of Russian and Chinese “brainwashing” techniques. 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 human consciousness. Certain participants were volunteers from the CIA, military officers and university attendees who had knowledge of the nature of the studies. Others, however, were mental patients, incarcerated persons, drug addicts, and sex workers forced or misled into drug dosages that in certain instances resulted in permanent damage.

Chase's Legacy

David Chase won five Emmys for the Sopranos, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey-based mafia family widely credited with ushering in the golden age of “prestige” television. Since the show, starring the late James Gandolfini, concluded in 2007, Chase has mostly focused on feature films. He wrote, directed and produced the 2012 movie Not Fade Away. He also co-wrote and produced "The Many Saints of Newark", a Sopranos prequel featuring Michael Gandolfini, that premiered in 2021.

TV Comeback

His return to TV follows he declared the period of ambitious TV dramas in part shaped by his show to be a “blip” that is now finished. In an interview with a leading newspaper for the series' quarter-century milestone, the septuagenarian claimed that he had been instructed to "simplify" his screenplays in discussions with studio heads and advised against producing television that was too complex.

Chase attributed that view in partly to his encounter trying to make a series with the screenwriter Hannah Fidell about a high-end sex worker who ends up in witness protection. In numerous meetings with producers, he said, they were told “the unfortunate truth” that it was too complex. "What audience is this targeting?" 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.”