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An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’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 when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.