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The acclaimed creator is making a comeback to the small screen. The iconic mob drama creator is scripting MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the Central Intelligence Agency's covert Cold War period psychological manipulation project for HBO.

About the Project

This new venture, initially revealed by industry sources, will be Chase's initial TV project since the groundbreaking HBO crime series. This intense narrative, based on the author's book Project Mind Control, zeroes in on the notorious scientist, referred to as the “black sorcerer” who led the MKUltra initiative, the CIA's clandestine psychedelic program that tested hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, and physical coercion on willing and unwilling subjects from the early 1950s until it was halted in the early 1970s.

Research Activities

The scientist directed these tests in the name of state safety, to combat the perceived threat of Russian and Chinese “brainwashing” techniques. He's also known as the accidental pioneer of the LSD counterculture, as he brought the substance to the agency in the 1950s, in an effort to investigate the potential of controlling human consciousness. Certain participants were willing individuals from the agency, military officers and college students who had awareness of the nature of the experiments. Others, on the other hand, were psychiatric inmates, prisoners, drug addicts, and sex workers coerced or misled into drug dosages that in certain instances left long-term harm.

Chase's Legacy

Chase won multiple Emmy Awards for his hit series, a intricate narrative about a New Jersey-based mafia family broadly acknowledged with starting the peak era of “prestige” television. Since the show, starring the late James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, the creator 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 debuted in 2021.

TV Comeback

This comeback to TV comes after he declared the era of sophisticated television series in part defined by his show to be a “blip” that is now over. Speaking to a leading newspaper for the show’s 25th anniversary, the 78-year-old claimed that he had been told to "simplify" his screenplays in discussions with executives and warned against producing television that was too complex.

Chase attributed that perspective in partly to his experience attempting to develop a series with the screenwriter Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who finds herself in witness protection. In multiple discussions with executives, he said, they were told “the unfortunate truth” that it was too complex. "What audience is this targeting?" 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 continued. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”