Particularly Europe has seen several crime series where events take place in a small community, in a idyllic place, and in spite of good stories and performances, they still seem odd as such places and most local citizen cannot be so maleficent and vicious. As the island of Samsø is a known tourist place, then felonies happening there are mostly connected with outsiders, tourists, providing the events with more realistic angle.
Nevetheless, most of them are rather trivial, sometimes not fully explained and motivated, and the atmosphere around is somehow stuffy (at least for me as non-villager). The characters seem realistic, but as for performances, it is peculiar that the actors having bigger fame and versatility have small and casual roles only (e.g., Sidse Babett Knudsen, Lars Brygmann, Thure Lindhardt, Lars Mikkelsen), while those playing leading characters are not so much used in Danish films (well, I liked Lars Bom in Rejseholdet as well, but he is still no Mikkelsen or Brygmann). As regards the female leads Lotte Arnsbjerg and Amalie Dollerup, I can't say that I am eager to follow their further career.
Therefore, I find Strisser på Samsø a 2nd grade series, but still much better than similar US ones. But if you like Danish (+ Swedish) crime series, it may be worth watching, at least for drawing a parallel.
