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A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.