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An heated debate lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.