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An intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, following a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again 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 serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.