If you’re a fan of the top two entries in Empire’s 100 Greatest TV Showslist, then this is already turning out to be quite the week, that’s for sure. No sooner have we gotten our first trailer for Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s new Apple TV sci-fi series Pluribus than we’re getting word via Deadline that actual legend David Chase is getting back in the telly game with an eyebrow raising new offering. According to the trade, The Sopranos creator Chase is set to delve into the CIA’s dark past with HBO limited series Project: MKUltra.
For those who may be unfamiliar, MKUltra was a covert program operated by the CIA in the mid-20th century that involved the use of hypnosis, torture, and psychedelic drugs on often unwitting subjects in order to extract confessions. Purported by the Central Intelligence Agency to be a preventative measure to counteract Soviet and Chinese ‘brainwashing’ techniques, MKUltra was in fact an entirely illegal project. Chase’s series, which he will write himself, is set to adapt John Lisle’s recently published, revelation packed non-fiction tome Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKUltra, which centres chiefly around highly controversial chemist and spymaster Sidney Gottlieb.
While Chase has written and directed Not Fade Away and written and produced The Sopranos prequel The Many Saints Of Newark in the eighteen years since his seminal mob drama came to an end, Project: MKUltra is, remarkably, set to be the first show Chase has created since redefining the landscape of modern television. No LSD, hypnosis, or torture will be necessary to have us glued to the box whenever this one comes to our screens — we are already seated.