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A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.