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The acclaimed creator is making a comeback to television. The iconic mob drama visionary will write MKUltra, a mini-series centered around the CIA's covert cold war-era mind control program for the premium network.

About the Project

This new venture, initially revealed by industry sources, marks Chase's first series following the era-defining HBO mob drama. This intense narrative, based on the author's non-fiction work "Project Mind Control", zeroes in on the notorious scientist, known as the "dark magician" who led Project MKUltra, the CIA's covert hallucinogen experiments that administered hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, and physical coercion on volunteers and non-consenting individuals from 1953 until it was halted in 1973.

Research Activities

The scientist oversaw such experiments in the interest of state safety, to combat the alleged danger of Soviet and Chinese mind control methods. He is also regarded as the inadvertent father of the psychedelic movement, as he introduced the drug to the agency in the mid-20th century, in an effort to explore the potential of controlling human consciousness. Certain participants were willing individuals from the CIA, armed forces personnel and college students who had awareness of the nature of the studies. Others, however, were mental patients, incarcerated persons, drug addicts, and sex workers coerced or deceived into drug dosages that in certain instances resulted in permanent damage.

Creator's Background

Chase earned multiple Emmy Awards for the Sopranos, a complex drama about a New Jersey-based crime syndicate widely credited with ushering in the golden age of “prestige” television. Since the show, starring the late James Gandolfini, concluded in 2007, Chase has primarily concentrated on feature films. He wrote, directed and produced the 2012 film "Not Fade Away". Additionally, he collaborated on "The Many Saints of Newark", a Sopranos prequel starring Gandolfini’s son, that premiered in 2021.

TV Comeback

This comeback to TV follows he stated the period of sophisticated television series in some ways defined by the Sopranos to be a “blip” that is now over. Speaking to 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 warned against making television that was overly intricate.

He linked that perspective in part to his encounter attempting to develop a series with the writer Hannah Fidell about a high-end sex worker who ends up in witness 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 added. “And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were.”