It’s not a happy day in Happyland.
Debuted in September, this teen comedy series created by Ben Epstein and produced by Peter Pan and Smash duo Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, will not return for a second season.
This frothy series starring Bianca A. Santos, Camille Guaty, Katherine McNamara, Shane Harper, and Cameron Moulene, ventured into the lives of theme park workers. The series focuses on Lucy, a skeptical teen whose mother makes her living performing in the park as a fairytale princess. Lucy experiences the harsh realities of maturing and falling in love, while balancing her and her mother’s financial problems.
In the first season, there was an audience rating of only 0.2 among adults ages 18-49. With only 370,000 total viewers overall, the show desperately lacked a strong fan base. Despite being showcased with MTV’s most successful comedies Awkward and Faking It, Happyland failed to keep up with its competitors.
According to Hollywood Reporter as a result of the show’s ‘incest like’ storyline, critics were harsh towards the series. The end of the pilot reveals that Lucy, the show’s main character, and her love interest, Ian, may indeed be brother and sister…after they kissed. Overall viewers along with critics cared little for the plot of this series.
Meanwhile, MTV is still succeeding with comedies Awkward and Faking It. Awkward has been renewed for its fifth and final season. MTV’s dramas have also found more success than Happyland. Finding Carter, Teen Wolf, Eye Candy, Shannara, and Scream continue to have a positive outlook for the future of MTV.