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An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.