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A intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.