Four television screens showing Rose Matafeo hosting Taskmaster, Jono Pryor on a Breakfast couch, a Disney poster for Encanto Māori and Melanie Lynskey looking concerned

Pop CultureFebruary 10, 2025

New to streaming: What to watch on Netflix NZ, Neon and more this week

Guest writer
Four television screens showing Rose Matafeo hosting Taskmaster, Jono Pryor on a Breakfast couch, a Disney poster for Encanto Māori and Melanie Lynskey looking concerned

We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.

If you love homegrown comedy: Vince (ThreeNow, February 13)

In Three’s brand new comedy series Jono Pryor plays Vince, a self-centred TV host whose career crashes and burns after an on-air mishap at a children’s hospital fundraiser. Embarrassingly inspired by true events (Pryor told My Life in TV that he was once pantsed at Christmas in the Park), the down-on-his-luck host embarks on a riotous quest to repair his reputation while learning to be a better person and father. Directed by Westside’s David de Lautour, Vince looks to be a comedic rollercoaster – complete with a few local celebrity cameos.

If you enjoy family-friendly TV: Junior Taskmaster (TVNZ+, February 13)

You shouldn’t mess with perfection, but Junior Taskmaster has and it’s “hilarious, charming and hugely fun.” Replacing Greg Davies as the show’s figurehead is our very own Rose Matafeo, who hosts alongside Mike Wozniak in this pint-sized spinoff of the beloved comedy game show. Introduced in weekly heats, tween competitors go head-to-head in an array of fiendishly tricky tasks that put their problem-solving skills to the test as they vie to win Matafeo’s golden head. Expect plenty of hilarious meltdowns – à la James Acaster – in this show that is tailor-made for the whole whānau.

If you like meaty mystery-thrillers: Yellowjackets (Neon, February 14)

Season three of the hotly-anticipated Yellowjackets is upping the ante, diving even deeper into the twisted aftermath of an ill-fated plane crash that left its survivors with more than just physical scars. Starring our own Melanie Lynskey alongside new guest stars Hilary Swank and Joel McHale, the trauma of the past refuses to stay buried, manifesting in new horrors that blur the line between reality and madness. The new season of Yellowjackets has been called “gruesome, gripping and blackly comic”, and looks ready to eat your heart out.

If you enjoy feel-good fairytales: Encanto Reo Māori (Disney+, February 14)

Building on the success of The Lion King Reo Māori and Moana Reo Māori, Encanto Reo Māori is Disney’s latest film to be re-released entirely in te reo Māori. The film beautifully merges Colombian and Māori cultures in a vibrant celebration of ahi kā, a pā where the Madrigals and their magic burns bright. Featuring local talent Hinetu Dell and Te Waimarie Ngatai-Callaghan, alongside stunning visuals and toe-tapping songs, this enchanting fairy-tale is a must-see. Gather your whānau, and experience the magic of Disney like never before.

If you love genre-bending blockbusters: The Gorge (Apple TV+, February 14)

Notorious horror director Scott Derrickson is at the helm of The Gorge, Apple TV’s first big original film of the year. Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick) and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit) play two highly-trained operatives appointed to opposing guard towers on the side of the titular gorge. For 365 days, and without help from the outside world, the operatives must protect humanity from the mysterious evil that lurks within. A high-action blend between Hitchcock’s Vertigo and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, The Gorge is set to be your next guilty pleasure.

Pick of the Flicks: Lean on Pete (TVNZ+, February 15)

British writer-director Andrew Haigh broke hearts with the critically acclaimed queer drama All of Us Strangers, but his previous feature, the devastating coming-of-age western Lean on Pete is an underseen gem. Produced by A24, the film follows Charley (Charlie Plummer), a lonely and impoverished teenager who befriends an ageing racehorse after being uprooted to Portland, Oregon. When he learns that the horse is bound for the glue factory, Charley rescues him and together they embark on a journey across the new American frontier. Described as an “equine epic” that “is as comforting as a country ballad” Lean on Pete is sure to make your soul swell.

The rest

Netflix

Surviving Black Hawk Down (February 10)

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep (February 11)

Honeymoon Crasher (February 12)

La Dolce Villa (February 13)

Cobra Kai S6 P3 (February 13)

The Exchange S2 (February 13)

Love Is Blind S8 (February 14)

I Am Married…But! (February 14)

Love Forever (February 14)

Melo Movie (February 14)

Valeria S4 (February 14)

TVNZ+

Romesh Ranganathan’s Parents’ Evening (February 10)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (February 10)

Universal Soldier (February 11)

House At The End Of The Street (February 11)

Travel Guides Australia S7 (February 11)

Dream Horse (February 11)

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (February 11)

The Big Fat Quiz Of Everything (February 12)

The UnXplained With William Shatner (February 12)

Into The Badlands S1-S3 (February 12)

Junior Taskmaster (February 13)

Heavy Weight With David Letele – Tipping The Scales (February 13)

Bad Boyfriends (February 13)

Invisible Boys (February 14)

50 First Dates (February 14)

House Of Gucci (15 February)

Hercules (15 February)

Apocalypse Now Redux (15 February)

Lars And The Real Girl (15 February)

Lean On Pete (15 February)

Night School (February 15)

Lockerbie: A Search For Truth (February 16)

ThreeNow

Vince (February 13)

Lethally Blonde (February 15)

Neon

Batwheels S2 (February 10)

Good Luck Chuck (February 10)

Love Me If You Dare (February 11)

Life As We Know It (February 12)

Expedition Unknown S9 (February 12)

Two Weeks Notice (February 13)

Selena + Restaurant S1 (February 13)

What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel S1 (February 13)

Yellowjackets S3 (February 14)

Law Abiding Citizen (February 14)

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (February 15)

Thief Lord (February 15)

The 4.30 Movie (February 16)

Prime Video

Real Madrid: Como No Te Voy A Querer (February 10)

50,000 First Dates: A True Love Story (February 11)

My Fault: London (February 13)

Disney+

Harlem Ice: Miniseries (February 12)

Love of My Life (February 12)

Umami (February 12)

Shuffle of Love: A Descendants Short Story (February 13)

Encanto Reo Māori (February 14)

Young Sheldon S1-S7 (February 16)

Apple TV+

The Gorge (February 14)

Goldie (February 14)

Hayu

Hayu Hot Seat: Ashley Darby (February 10)

Summer House S9 (February 13)

Little Women Atlanta S1-S6 (February 15)

Acorn/AMC+/Shudder

The Dead Thing (AMC+, Shudder, February 14)

Slumber Party Massacre (Shudder, February 10)

DocPlay

The Bowraville Murders (February 10)

Aquarius (February 13)

Keep going!
a family of monkeys surrounded by love hearts
The only commitment ceremony you need (Image: Supplied)

Pop CultureFebruary 10, 2025

Mammals is the best reality show on Earth 

Senior writer
a family of monkeys surrounded by love hearts
The only commitment ceremony you need (Image: Supplied)

Sick of human reality TV? Alex Casey has found a perfect solution in David Attenborough’s latest.

I’m know I’m not alone when I say this: humans are bleaking me out at the moment. Turn on the news for the bleakest updates imaginable. Try to numb the pain with Married at First Sight and you’re greeted with the bleakest men trying to out-bleak each other. Open your phone and find a bleak sponsored post for Cruskits (“busy day? Quick lunch”) and a bleak AI video of an ancient crone transforming into a young beautiful woman for her America’s Got Talent audition. 

If you too need a break from humanity, I can highly recommend hanging out with the stars of Mammals, the latest David Attenborough joint which has just finished airing on Sunday nights on TVNZ. With each episode themed around different living conditions of mammals across the world – “heat”, “cold”, “dark”, “water” – there have been countless moments that have left me more aghast and entertained than any rose ceremony or Treasure Island elimination. 

For example, in the “new wild” episode, Attenborough’s team follows a large family of otters which has adapted to life on the bustling city streets of Singapore. But when the loud traffic drowns out their usual method of communicating while crossing the busy roads, one of them becomes separated from the pack and can’t hear where they are. What transpires is a moving Babe 2: Pig in the City style adventure full of peril, sadness and a tearful joyous reunion. 

That’s not to say that it’s all happy endings because, of course, bleak humans have ruined everything for everyone. In the final “forest” episode, we see howler monkeys in South America who are being accidentally electrocuted in their thousands thanks to uninsulated wires encroaching on their natural habitat. As a baby howler clung onto its recently-deceased mother in confusion, I let out a guttural wail usually only reserved for wholesome over-50s weddings on MAFS. 

The intense emotional images are not helped by David Attenborough’s singular warbling voice, which sounds more and more like he is always about to cry with every passing year. And who can blame him? Every storyline, no matter how cute or curious, ends in the same way. Whether it’s the lemur forced to live inside a tree due to soaring temperatures, or the wolves forced to dodge a field of land mines: their lives are now hell, and it’s all because of us. 

That’s why this serial avoider prefers the stories located as far away from human interference as possible, where devious whales slip into undercover boss mode as pretend dolphins in the Pacific Ocean, and the Damaraland mole rats live in total darkness in the Kalahari Desert. If you thought Alone put people under the pump, wait until you meet the wolverine covering 50 miles a day in the hunt for a humble morsel of moose meat. 

And don’t even get me started on the star-nosed mole, whose overall Zoidberg-inspired look really gives the AI-generated crone on Instagram a run for her money in the fake stakes. 

While you can revel in a human-free world for the majority of each episode, the final “Making of Mammals” segment follows the experience of Attenborough’s crew out there in the wilderness. It is jarring at first for the eye to transition from the silky sheen of a sea lion to the crumpled nylon of a human cargo short, but you’ll soon forget once you witness the tireless days, weeks and months that can go into capturing a single shot or interaction.

There’s also plenty of peril and tragedy here. While on the hunt for lemurs hiding in tree trunks in Madagascar, one crew gets lost in the forest and finds themselves going around in circles. As they get more and more anxious, verbalising how long a human can last without water in the heat, it is hard not to think about The Blair Witch Project. Elsewhere in the Kalahari Desert, the hunt for a rare mole rat initially yields only tiny deceased furry bodies – needlessly killed by humans.

But before you switch off entirely and move deep into a tree trunk yourself, Mammals provides crucial moments of hope. There’s the local team stringing up alternate routes to stop the howler monkeys getting electrocuted on the wires, or the local scientists who successfully manage to tag a camera on a false killer whale with whoops and cheers. “Commitment from passionate individuals on the ground does make a difference,” Attenborough warbles in the closing moments.

“If we continue to share knowledge and protect the environment, there can be hope for the future of all mammals – including ourselves.”

Click here to watch Mammals on TVNZ+

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