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A intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.