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An intense debate recently spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin 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 puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.