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A heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.