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A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.