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An heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, 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 tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.