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A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.