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An intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating 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 slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up 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 adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.