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The acclaimed creator is making a return to the small screen. The Sopranos visionary is scripting Project MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the CIA's secret cold war-era psychological manipulation project for the premium network.

About the Project

This new venture, first reported by industry sources, will be Chase's initial TV project since the groundbreaking HBO mob drama. This intense narrative, inspired by the author's non-fiction work Project Mind Control, focuses on the notorious scientist, known as the "dark magician" who led 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 1973.

The Experiments

Gottlieb directed such experiments in the name of national security, to combat the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He is also regarded as the accidental pioneer of the LSD counterculture, as he brought the drug to the agency in the mid-20th century, in an effort to explore the possibilities of controlling human consciousness. Some test subjects were willing individuals from the CIA, armed forces personnel and university attendees who had knowledge of the purpose of the experiments. Others, on the other hand, were psychiatric inmates, prisoners, drug addicts, and sex workers coerced or deceived into substance administration that in certain instances left permanent damage.

Chase's Legacy

Chase earned five Emmys for his hit series, a complex drama about a New Jersey-based mafia family widely credited with ushering in the golden age of “prestige” television. After the series, featuring the deceased James Gandolfini, wrapped in 2007, Chase has mostly focused on feature films. He wrote, directed and produced the 2012 film "Not Fade Away". Additionally, he collaborated on "The Many Saints of Newark", a prequel to The Sopranos featuring Michael Gandolfini, that premiered in 2021.

Return to Television

This comeback to TV comes after he stated the era of ambitious television series in some ways defined by his show to be a “blip” that is now over. Speaking to a major publication for the show’s 25th anniversary, the septuagenarian claimed that he had been told to “dumb down” his screenplays in discussions with executives and advised against making television that was overly intricate.

He attributed that view in partly to his experience trying to make a show with the writer Hannah Fidell about a luxury escort who ends up in federal protection. In numerous meetings with producers, he said, they were informed "the harsh reality" that it was too complex. “Who is this all really for?” 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. "Regarding streaming leaders? The situation is deteriorating. We are reverting to previous conditions."