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A heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, after someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.