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An heated debate lately went viral on social media, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.