ABC's "The Whispers" (10 p.m. Monday, WTAE) begins creepily enough as some entity -- a supernatural being? an alien? -- named Drill coaxes children into heinous acts in the guise of playing a game. This includes a 6-year-old who lures her mother to a treehouse and then watches as the woman plummets onto a stone patio below.

Before mom's seemingly fatal plummet, the girl guilt trips her mother, "I tried calling you but you weren't listening. You're always talking on the phone."

"The Whispers" plays on parental fears and guilt at the outset and then sets up a soap opera story for its characters, including FBI child specialist Claire Bennigan (Lily Rabe, "American Horror Story"), whose husband died in a recent plane crash and whose son went deaf. Claire also had an affair with U.S. Defense Department operative Wes Lawrence (Barry Sloane, "Revenge"), who's dispatched to Africa to investigate an anomaly that appears somehow connected to the kids who take their marching orders from Drill. (Drill communicates with the kids through lights and electronics, including toys.)

By the end of the premiere episode, some pieces begin to fall into place, including the identity of a character played by a shaggy Milo Ventimiglia ("Gilmore Girls"). But these revelations also reveal myriad plot holes.

Credit producers with some creative casting, most notably actress Dee Wallace, who played the mother in "E.T." and plays Claire's mom here. Her presence suggests aliens -- baddies, not nice ones like E.T. -- may be in this show's wheelhouse.

"The Whispers" had the potential to be an intriguing, supernatural soap, but by episode two, it proves itself to be one of those series where the audience is, frustratingly, frequently one step ahead of the characters. That's not fun; it's boring, which is the last thing a supernatural thriller should be.