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A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.