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An intense debate recently went viral on social media, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.