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An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, following someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.