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An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science 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: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.