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A heated debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ currently.