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An intense debate lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, 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 competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.