Dr. Michael Foster (Peter Gallagher) must contend with both a missing wife who'd been dabbling in witchcraft and a daughter turning into a raven.

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The Halloween season gets rolling on TV this weekend in the most unlikely place.

Lifetime has made a name for itself with women-in-jeopardy programs. Yet it inverts that typical story by removing the woman and having her family try to find her, then puts it to the service of horror in "The Gathering."

The two-part, four-hour miniseries, running at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on Lifetime, isn't great by any means. I mean, it's about witches trying to take over New York City, for goodness sake. (And no, it has nothing to do with the fashion industry; that's Bravo's turf.) But it's fairly well-made and well-acted, and it's an interesting mix in genres -- even as its many story strands begin to unravel by the end of the opening installment.

Peter Gallagher stars as Dr. Michael Foster, and his prehensile eyebrows and over-earnest demeanor are perfect for the role of a caring husband and father in search of his missing wife. It seems Ann, played by Kristin Lehman, slipped him some serious bad drugs when he came home late one night, and when he wakes up from their night of passion she's gone and he's beset by nightmarish visions.

Ann disappears at the same time as a teacher at their daughter's prep school, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler of "The Sopranos" pops up as one of those helpful (most helpful of all to the audience) characters one finds so often in Henry James novels. As a specialist in comparative religions, she explains that Ann and the missing teacher were dabbling in some dark magic.

"You know," Doc Foster replies, "I don't care if my wife's a witch. I just want her back."

Doesn't every straying wife want to be married to a sweetheart like that?

At the same time, he has to tend to their surly daughter, Zee, played by Jenna Boyd. "You have no idea how I feel," she says. "You don't know anything about me -- or Mom." But that doesn't mean she isn't concerned. She has an inkling of what her mom has been up to, and she tries to get her back by infiltrating the wiccan through its tentacles at New Amsterdam Prep.

You think you've got problems trying to get your teenage daughter to hold to curfew? Well, what are you gonna do when she goes to the balcony, mumbles some Latin, turns into a raven and flies off?

This is all a nice horrific little twist on the usual Lifetime thriller, and it holds together even when Doc Foster meets up with a police detective who not only buys his story about witches, but has some personal experience of his own. (His son was killed by black magic while in Foster's care, something Foster blamed himself for; Manhattan is a very small world in this miniseries.)

"I opened my eyes," the detective says, "and let me tell you it's scary out there."

True enough. Where things get a little overambitious is when writer John Shiban, who worked on "The X-Files," tries to extend it to a larger political metaphor by bringing in Peter Fonda as a real-estate mogul aligned with the devil (and no he doesn't sport a blond wig to look like Donald Trump).

It seems Fonda's mover-shaker and the "gathering" of witches want to control all of New York City -- and install a woman as mayor! Now that's nefarious.

"So we've moved on from wicked witches to government conspiracy," pooh-poohs Foster's doctor partner. But he's using his niece, unbeknownst to her, as surrogate mother to some sort of Rosemary's baby, so he can't be trusted anyway.

And I haven't even gotten to his comatose wife, played by the usually mousy Susanna Thompson, who is brought back to life by Fonda so she can carry on an affair with him -- and who knows what else.

That's a lot of balls for a miniseries to keep in the air, even for the most talented of wicked witches. When Foster says, "I can't begin to understand anything anymore," I know what he's saying.

Yet if you don't think too much and allow director Bill Eagles, a "CSI" veteran, to carry you along with the creepy mood and music, "The Gathering" works as a horror thriller unique to Lifetime.

Hey, witches can be women in jeopardy, too, you know.