🔗 Share this article

David Chase is making a comeback to television. The Sopranos visionary is scripting Project MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the Central Intelligence Agency's covert Cold War period mind control program for HBO.

Exploring the Series

This new venture, initially revealed by entertainment insiders, marks Chase's initial TV project following the era-defining HBO mob drama. The dramatic thriller, inspired by the author's book "Project Mind Control", focuses on Sidney Gottlieb, known as the “black sorcerer” who led Project MKUltra, the agency's clandestine psychedelic program that administered hallucinogenic drugs, hypnotic techniques, and torture on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from the early 1950s until it was halted in the early 1970s.

The Experiments

Gottlieb oversaw these tests in the interest of national security, to counter the perceived threat of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He's also known as the inadvertent father of the psychedelic movement, as he brought the drug to the agency in the 1950s, in an effort to explore the possibilities of manipulating human consciousness. Some test subjects were volunteers from the CIA, military officers and university attendees who had awareness of the nature of the studies. Others, on the other hand, were mental patients, incarcerated persons, substance abusers, and sex workers coerced or deceived into substance administration that in certain instances resulted in permanent damage.

Chase's Legacy

Chase earned multiple Emmy Awards for his hit series, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey-based mafia family widely credited with ushering in the peak era of high-quality TV. After the series, featuring the late James Gandolfini, concluded 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 Sopranos prequel starring Gandolfini’s son, that debuted in 2021.

TV Comeback

His return to television comes after he stated the era of ambitious television series in part shaped by the Sopranos to be a "temporary phase" that is now finished. In an interview with a leading newspaper for the series' quarter-century milestone, the 78-year-old asserted that he had been told to “dumb down” his scripts in meetings with executives and advised against making television that was overly intricate.

He attributed that view in partly to his encounter trying to make a series with the screenwriter Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who finds herself in federal protection. In multiple discussions with producers, he said, they were told "the harsh reality" that it was not straightforward enough. "What audience is this targeting?" he said. “I guess the stockholders?”

“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.”