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A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.