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A heated discussion recently went viral on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.