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An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males came online to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.