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An intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight 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 the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science 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: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.