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A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering 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 shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, 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, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series is on Disney+ currently.