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An heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely 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 was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.