http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/arts/television/happyland-mtvs-new-scripted-series.html 2014-09-30 00:34:00 ‘Happyland,’ MTV’s New Scripted Series “Happyland” is a new MTV sitcom and drama set in an amusement park. === The average visit to Walt Disney World or any similar theme park isn’t a profound experience, but it’s an amusing enough diversion. That statement also describes The show, which begins Tuesday night on MTV, is a comedy with a fair amount of melodrama mixed in. The comic parts — fistfights between costumed characters, cattiness in the costume room, training sessions with militarylike intensity — can be pretty funny. Do they accurately reflect what goes on backstage at a real theme park? Hey, if it’s on TV, it must be true. The melodrama is more uneven, and whether it will play to MTV’s audience depends on what MTV’s audience is. The channel has been venturing further into Lucy (Bianca A. Santos) is the smart, sensible anchor, a teenager who works in the park, as does her mother, Elena (Camille Guaty), neither apparently being paid very well because they’re on the verge of eviction. The two might be sisters, an illusion that Elena, a single mom, is eager to foster, both for the sake of her dating life and because youthful looks are essential if she is going to keep playing Princess Adriana in the park’s kiddie shows. Enter Ian (Shane Harper), son of the park’s owner, who has been ordered to learn the business and thus is doing some character work himself. He and Lucy look as if they’re headed toward a classic rich boy-poor girl fling, but by the end of the premiere there is evidence that a romance would be inappropriate. Wildly inappropriate. As in a lot of these teeny-bopper shows, everyone in “Happyland” is picture-postcard attractive. Well, everyone except a scraggly guy known as Dirty Dave. Wait a minute — is that Josh Groban? Yes, it is. “Happyland” may be harmless, but it has its occasional surprises.