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An intense debate recently went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.