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An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled 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 liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, 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 demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.