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David Chase is set for a return to the small screen. The Sopranos visionary will write MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the CIA's covert Cold War period mind control program for the premium network.

About the Series

The project, first reported by industry sources, marks Chase's first series since the groundbreaking HBO crime series. This intense narrative, inspired by John Lisle's book Project Mind Control, focuses on the notorious scientist, known as the "dark magician" who oversaw Project MKUltra, the agency's clandestine hallucinogen experiments that tested psychedelic substances, hypnosis, and physical coercion on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from the early 1950s until it was terminated in the early 1970s.

The Experiments

Gottlieb directed these tests in the interest of national security, to counter the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He's also known as the accidental pioneer of the psychedelic movement, as he introduced the drug to the agency in the 1950s, in an attempt to explore the potential of controlling human consciousness. Some test subjects were willing individuals from the CIA, military officers and university attendees who had knowledge of the purpose of the experiments. Others, on the other hand, were mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and sex workers coerced or deceived into drug dosages that in certain instances left long-term harm.

Creator's Background

David Chase earned five Emmys for the Sopranos, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey crime syndicate widely credited with ushering in the golden age of high-quality TV. After the series, featuring the late James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, the creator has primarily concentrated on movie projects. He wrote, directed 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 Michael Gandolfini, that debuted in 2021.

Return to Television

His return to TV comes after he stated the era of sophisticated television series in some ways shaped by the Sopranos to be a "temporary phase" that is now over. Speaking to a leading newspaper for the series' quarter-century milestone, the septuagenarian claimed that he had been instructed to “dumb down” his scripts in meetings with studio heads and warned against making television that was too complex.

He linked that view in partly to his encounter attempting to develop 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 informed "the harsh reality" that it was too complex. "What audience is this targeting?" he remarked. “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 continued. "Regarding streaming leaders? The situation is deteriorating. We are reverting to previous conditions."