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An intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). 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 tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.