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An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe 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.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.