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An intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, after someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman 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 are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ currently.