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An intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing 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, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.