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A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. 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 traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.