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A heated debate lately went viral on social media, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.