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An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.