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An heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.