The Sopranos Creator David Chase Explores CIA MKUltra Experiments In New HBO Series
The Sopranos creator David Chase is coming back to HBO with a show about the CIA’s MKUltra experiments, and it already sounds like a worthy follow-up to his gangster classic. The Sopranos is a game-changing masterpiece that rewrote the rules of TV, kickstarted the Golden Age of Television, and inspired a generation of creators to tell stories about morally ambiguous antiheroes.
In the years since, Chase has struggled to replicate that success. His feature directorial debut, Not Fade Away, came and went without making much of a splash, and his ambitious miniseries A Ribbon of Dreams got stuck in development hell. Even when he returned to The Sopranos universe with the prequel film The Many Saints of Newark, it was met with a mixed response.
Sopranos Creator David Chase Is Making An MKUltra Show For HBO
Chase is developing a new show about MKUltra for HBO. Titled Project: MKUltra, this limited series will dig into the CIA’s dark history of mind control experiments. MKUltra was a controversial covert program that the CIA worked on in the mid-20th century. It involved the use of torture, hypnosis, and even psychedelic drugs to get confessions out of suspects.
The CIA supposedly developed this experimental methodology as a countermeasure against the brainwashing techniques used by the Soviet and Chinese governments. The entire operation was flagrantly illegal, and so it’s been mostly shrouded in secrecy in the years since. But Chase is hoping to go back through that twisted chapter of American history and turn it into gripping television.
Chase will write the series himself, based on John Lisle’s recently published non-fiction book Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKUltra. Lisle frames the story around the extremely controversial chemist and spymaster Sidney Gottlieb, who will likely be the central character of Chase’s TV adaptation.
The MKUltra Experiments Will Allow Chase To Double Down On The Sopranos’ Weirdness
There were many things that made The Sopranos such a great show, from its incredible cast to its twisted sense of humor to its shockingly authentic portrayal of everyday life in the mafia. But what really set it apart was its surreal tone, with comic non-sequiturs and gonzo dream sequences.
In a dream, Tony got shot at by Lee Harvey Oswald. In a food-poisoned delirium, he imagined his friend confessing to him through the mouth of a dead fish at the market. Chase’s new show, Project: MKUltra, will double down on The Sopranos’ signature weirdness with a story about the CIA’s psychotropic experiments on the human mind.
