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David Chase is making a return to television. The iconic mob drama creator will write MKUltra, a limited series focusing on the Central Intelligence Agency's covert cold war-era psychological manipulation project for the premium network.

Exploring the Series

The project, initially revealed by entertainment insiders, will be Chase's first series since the era-defining HBO mob drama. The dramatic thriller, based on John Lisle's non-fiction work "Project Mind Control", focuses on Sidney Gottlieb, known as the “black sorcerer” who oversaw the MKUltra initiative, the agency's clandestine hallucinogen experiments that administered psychedelic substances, hypnotic techniques, and torture on willing and unwilling subjects from the early 1950s until it was halted in 1973.

The Experiments

The scientist oversaw such experiments in the name of state safety, to combat the alleged danger of Russian and Chinese mind control methods. He is also regarded as the accidental pioneer of the psychedelic movement, as he introduced the drug to the agency in the 1950s, in an effort to investigate the possibilities of controlling the human mind. Certain participants were volunteers from the agency, armed forces personnel and college students who had knowledge of the nature 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 some cases resulted in long-term harm.

Chase's Legacy

Chase earned five Emmys for the Sopranos, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey crime syndicate broadly acknowledged with ushering in the golden age of “prestige” television. Since the show, featuring the deceased James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, Chase has primarily concentrated on movie projects. He authored, helmed, and produced the 2012 film "Not Fade Away". Additionally, he collaborated on "The Many Saints of Newark", a prequel to The Sopranos featuring Gandolfini’s son, that premiered in 2021.

TV Comeback

This comeback to television comes after he stated the era of ambitious television series in part shaped by his show to be a "temporary phase" that is now finished. In an interview with a leading newspaper for the show’s 25th anniversary, the 78-year-old asserted that he had been instructed to "simplify" his scripts in discussions with executives and warned against making television that was overly intricate.

He attributed that view in part to his encounter attempting to develop a series with the screenwriter Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who ends up in federal protection. In numerous meetings with executives, he noted, they were informed “the unfortunate truth” that it was too complex. “Who is this all really for?” he remarked. “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. "Regarding streaming leaders? The situation is deteriorating. We are reverting to previous conditions."