The Watchful Eye Trailer Teases Freeform's Next Great Mystery

Hit anthology Cruel Summer doesn't return for a few months, but new series The Watchful Eye is likely to satisfy all your drama needs. Freeform previewed The Watchful Eye at the Television Critics Association 2023 Winter Press Tour, where execs shared an extended trailer that offers a hint of what's to come in the twisty mystery.

The Watchful Eye stars Mariel Molino (Promised Land) as Elena Santos, a young woman with a complicated past who scores a job as a live-in nanny for a wealthy family in Manhattan. After settling in, Elena learns that everyone in the mysterious apartment building, The Greybourne, has deadly secrets and ulterior motives — but little do her new employers know, Elena has some shocking secrets of her own. As Elena begins to investigate the building's dark past and the sordid lives of its residents, she uncovers a web of lies, fatal "accidents," and even supernatural threats.

In addition to Molino, The Watchful Eye stars Warren Christie, Amy Acker, Jon-Michael Ecker, and Aliyah Royale. The psychological thriller premieres with two episodes on Monday, January 30; it will also stream next-day on Hulu.

The other major show in Freeform's mystery slate, Cruel Summer, is slated to return for its second season in Summer 2023. In Season 2, the anthology introduces a new group of characters living in an idyllic waterfront town in the Pacific Northwest. Told from three different timelines surrounding Y2K, the new installment of Cruel Summer charts the early friendship between Megan, Isabella, and Megan's best friend Luke, their blossoming love triangle, and the secret that threatens all of their lives.

After making stars out of Season 1 leads Chiara Aurelia and Olivia Holt, Cruel Summer — the highest-rated series in Freeform history — hopes to do the same for its Season 2 cast. The main trio includes Sadie Stanley (The Goldbergs), Lexi Underwood (Little Fires Everywhere), and Griffin Gluck (American Vandal, Locke & Key), with KaDee Strickland (Shut Eye), Lisa Yamada (Little Fires Everywhere), and Sean Blakemore (General Hospital) in supporting roles.

During its TCA Press Tour presentation, Freeform also announced new reality series Love Trip: Paris and shared return dates and renewals for many of its popular series. In Love Trip: Paris, four single American girls move into a penthouse in Paris, where they find a floor of French suitors eager to date them. Narrated by Matt Rogers (I Love That For You), the dating show premieres on Valentine's Day, February 14.

Other Freeform shows airing this winter and spring include Grown-ish, which has been picked up for a sixth season ahead of the Season 5B premiere on January 18; Good Trouble Season 5, premiering March 16 with returning star Maia Mitchell; and Single Drunk Female Season 2, featuring recurring stars Busy Philipps, Ricky Velez, and Charlie Hall. Unlike Grown-ish and Good Trouble, which drop episodes weekly on Hulu (as part of Freeform's next-day streaming promise), the entire second season of Single Drunk Female will stream on Hulu on April 13, one day after the linear premiere.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.