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An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.