Taylor Lautner

Cuckoo: why swapping one star for another doesn't work

The BBC3 sitcom replaced Andy Samberg with Taylor Lautner, but as Two and a Half Men and Midsomer Murders have proven, TV shows rarely survive a serious personnel change.

Radio Times review

Beleaguered Ken goes away for the weekend, leaving the family to run riot and the show to soldier on without Greg Davies. It plays safe with a standard frat-house/Inbetweeners story: bluntly randy Dylan (Tyger Drew-Honey) is told by his cold, beautiful classmate Zoe (Holly Earl) that she'll take his virginity if he throws a house party while Dad's absent. The influx of hungry ravers gives mystic Dale his chance to show he can run his late father's baked potato van.

Cuckoo's telegraphed plots and wild implausibles make it an uneven watch, but the good bits are great. As the cartoonish Dale, Twilight heart-throb Taylor Lautner shows he's got fine comic timing as well as beauty, the swine.

The offbeat sitcom returns minus a key element following the exit of Andy Samberg's titular hippy. This season two opener sees things pick up a few years on from Cuckoo's disappearance. With life moving on for Rachel (Tamla Kari) and Dylan (Tyger Drew-Honey), parents Ken and Lorna (Greg Davies and Helen Baxendale) are preparing for an empty nest. That is, until a mysterious figure from Cuckoo's past arrives. Will Twilight's Taylor Lautner be able to fill Samberg's role as the new oddball on the block?

Radio Times review

Series two of a sitcom that was billed in 2012 as a transatlantic casting coup, but turned out to be part of a domestic comic's rise to the top. Saturday Night Live alumnus Andy Samberg jetted over to play a hippy-ish American who crash-lands into an ordinary Staffordshire family. Having been overshadowed by the man playing the head of the household - Greg Davies - Samberg has been killed off, replaced by Twilight star Taylor Lautner as a second airheaded interloper.

With Esther Smith taking over as Davies's hippy-loving daughter, and a lot of silly setting up to do, this episode feels transitional. But the show's main problem is still there: Davies is funnier than the rest of the cast. And since series one went out, Man Down has shown us that his own scripts are a lot stronger than this.

Cuckoo, review: Taylor Lautner is 'very good indeed'

Twilight star Taylor Lautner is a successful addition to this hugely enjoyable comedy, says Gerard O'Donovan.

Cuckoo: Taylor Lautner's BBC comedy is short on laughs

The second series of BBC Three comedy Cuckoo now stars Taylor Lautner, but it remains predictable.

Why is Taylor Lautner in a BBC3 sitcom?

Taylor Lautner was Hollywood's highest-paid teen - so why is he in a BBC3 sitcom?

Cuckoo Series 2 preview

I think Taylor Lautner is a welcome addition to Cuckoo and it's not long before you start forgetting Andy Samberg was even in it.

Cuckoo Series 2 preview

Kristen Stewart may be surprised when she sees her friend and Twilight co-star Taylor Lautner in his new British comedy, Cuckoo. Not that it is bad - it's actually rather good - but the vomit-fuelled antics of series two may not be something she's used to seeing him in...

Twilight's Taylor Lautner spotted filming Cuckoo

The US actor has swapped his role as a teenage werewolf for a part on UK TV. He joins BBC Three's comedy Cuckoo, which stars Greg Davies, and will play a mysterious stranger who turns the family's lives upside-down, after their unwanted son-in-law disappears while walking in the Himalayas.