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An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.