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An intense discussion recently went viral on social media, after a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found 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 which he and his ward set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur 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 the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.