White Sands

Nice relaxing TV. Attractive location and a good yarn. I love the normality of most of the scandi acting, they're not so self-conscious as the brits, or as politically correct in these awful times. Go Denmark 🇩🇰

This is not a crime series. This is Romeo and Juliet, located on the sea shore of Denmark. After the classic of all series - Forbrydelsen - new Scandinavian crime series have been produced almost factorywise. Much of these are pretty similar. Highly entertaining, but easily forgotten once you press the 'Next' button. Hvide Sande has all the ingredients of those series: two cops, a young murder victim, and a remote rural region, inhabited by obscure and secretive characters. But Hvide Sande weaves these into a Grand Love Story. Usually, when you watch a crime series, you can't wait to watch the next episode, to unravel the mystery and solve the crime. In Hvide Sande, it's impossible to turn off the screen for quite another reason: it would be like abruptly stopping the most tender of kisses. The dialogues between the two protagonist are on a literary level. And sharp and witty on top. The psychological elaboration of the characters is impressive, making you feel connected to them all the way through the story. This psychological depth characterizes the story as a whole as well. We don't see the usual hardened thugs and creepy psychopaths. Hvide Sande takes us instead to elderly homes, hippie communities, real estate agencies, and university libraries. I read a Danish reviewer here who states that the portrayal of Danish rural life in Hvide Sande is utterly unrealistic. Well, that's a fact. The series unveils a romantic world that even in Jutland never existed. But where we all would love to be, and never would want to leave. Just like the kiss the male protagonist describes. A kiss that never happened. But that made him forget time and space, and that he wanted to never end.

This series required one to leave one's brain at the entrance. Fully awake, this would be impossible to watch as it has so many plot holes, coincidences, fortuitous events, impossibilities.

Added to this was the fact that the murderer was clear from the beginning of episode five and there was very little tension left to keep one watching.

The premiss was a cliché - mismatched couple who dislike each other have to pretend to be husband and wife. Their grubbing around and interrogations of locals were enough to raise suspicions that they weren't what they seemed and they did.

I stuck with it to the bitter end but advise others to see something better if it's available.

Definitely not the usual quality one has come to expect from a Danish tv-series. As a crime show, it's very poorly written. The plot is weak, and the 'investigation' is almost laughable. Some of the dramatic events and their resolve are extremely illogical and makes the main characters seem pretty stupid. The characters overall are very stereotypical and not at all believable. The show feels like a poor-mans version of the british 'Death in Paradise' without the intentional comic relief.

Once again a really good crime thriller. (clearly from a Danish source) For me, who also like Norwegian crime thrillers very much, a reason to try this series and I was not disappointed. However, this is not a dark and gloomy Nordic crime thriller as you would typically expect. This one is carried with a lightness of touch and shows the local landscape at its best and weather at its best.

A very likeable leading lady with a somewhat grumpy partner played very well by Carsten Bjørnlund and a heart-warming dog. A perfect mix to solve the murder of a surfer on a snow-white, beautiful beach in Denmark. Everything is so beautiful that we immediately wanted to move our vacation to Denmark :-)

There is no shortage of suspense either. The story is multi-layered and unpredictable, so you want to know what happens next at the end of each episode. Plus a little pinch of local Danish humor. A successful mixture.

So it was a bad decision to choose it as a crime thriller before going to sleep, as there was rather little sleep :-)

A recommendation for all Nordic crime thriller fans.

--------------- Conclusion:

Excellent - This makes crime thrillers entertaining.