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An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

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 goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.