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A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (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 potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ currently.