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A intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman 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 strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.