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An intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory 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 bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.