Ellen Gray: Allentown's Michaela Conlin is mom-to-be on 'Bones'

PASADENA, Calif. - She's not a real pregnant woman, she just plays one on Fox's "Bones," but Allentown's Michaela Conlin isn't entirely sure that her mother knows the difference.

"My mom keeps asking me to send her pictures. I'm like, 'It's not real, Mom. It's not real,' " Conlin said, laughing, during a Fox party Tuesday night, as she talked about moving up to "the second-size belly," even while sporting a stomach as flat as ever.

Fans, too, sometimes have trouble telling Michaela and her character apart.

After Angela broke up with Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) on the show, "I had people stopping me and addressing me by Angela and saying, 'When are you getting back with Hodgins?' 'You made such a mistake,' 'You guys both made a mistake,' " she said. "The fans have very intense opinions."

And how do they feel now that Hodgins and Angela are having a baby?

"I think they're excited," Conlin said. "I think everyone's excited. It kind of brings such a nice energy to the set and to the show. I guess for me to do something new in this season is really great."

Conlin herself was excited by the presence of another party guest - Dave Roberts, the father of her "Bones" co-star David Boreanaz.

"I was so starstruck when I saw him," said Conlin, who grew up watching the now-retired weatherman on WPVI's "Action News."

"It was just that moment where it's, 'Oh my God, you're real,' " she added. "He's so lovely to be around. But when I [first] met him . . . I was a little nervous."

Roberts, in town with his wife, Patti, to spend time with their son and their grandchildren, seemed happy to be out of the cold and snow back home - and not standing out on City Avenue, talking about it.

"Done all that, been there. All the storms and sleeping over," said Roberts, who'll be 75 next month. "I put 32 years in there."

Other notes from the Television Critics Association's winter meetings:

* Fox has renewed "Raising Hope" for a second season.

* Fans of Fox's "Fringe" who worry that its move to Fridays Jan. 21 is a death sentence should maybe take a deep breath - and set their DVRs.

"It's a fantastic show, and I'd be heartbroken if it went away," Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly said Tuesday. "I want every one of those viewers to transfer to Friday."

"Fringe," he noted, has been competing in a particularly tough time slot on Thursdays.

"We are looking to go a little broader with the rating," he said, but "if our fans stick with us, this show could stay on the air for many years."

* "I don't tweet," said an apologetic Liza Lapira, after a reporter noted that while the actress' Fox-supplied biography suggested we follow her on Twitter (at @queenskid), she hadn't updated her feed since last April. (Don't hold it against her - "Traffic Light,' the sitcom she'll be co-starring in on the network starting Feb. 8, is a lot funnier than that Twitter-inspired CBS show, "$#*! My Dad Says.")

* Fox's "Terra Nova," the Steven Spielberg series that's found an excuse to put humans and dinosaurs on-screen together that involves neither creation theory nor "Jurassic Park"-like cloning, will get a two-night preview May 23 and 24 before its official fall premiere.

* Fox will be back in the sketch-comedy business this summer with a so-far untitled project produced by Jamie Foxx and actor-comedian Affion Crockett, who'll also star. It's set for a March 31 preview after "American Idol," before settling in on Thursday nights starting June. 9.

HBO's "Big Love" returns for its fifth and final season at 9 p.m. Sunday in an episode simply titled "Winter," and, indeed, all the Henricksons are feeling the chill in the wake of last season's climax, in which Bill (Bill Paxton) was elected to the Utah state Senate and chose that moment to go public with his polygamous family's long-guarded secret.

Expect the consequences of that decision to resonate for awhile, even as we meet some new characters - I particularly like Gregory Itzin ("24") as a Senate leader who's none too happy with Bill - and finally see Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) begin to take a hard look at the religious beliefs that underpin the marriage that she's given up so much to maintain.

It looks as if Bill, too, will be forced to confront a difficult truth about what does and doesn't separate his behavior from the corruption of the polygamous compound in which he grew up.

Though I'm not in the camp that was deeply disappointed in Season 4 - now out on DVD, in case you want to judge for yourself - I'll admit that the show's writers probably did try to squeeze a bit too much into nine episodes, and that, Itzin notwithstanding, I might be less interested in Bill's political career than they are.

Maybe he just needs to spend more time at home. Because if ever a marriage (or marriages) needed attention, it's his.

Ellen Gray (graye@phillynews.com) is attending the Television Critics Association's winter meetings in Pasadena, Calif. For updates, see go.philly.com/ellengray, follow @elgray on Twitter or join her online chat with Inquirer TV critic Jonathan Storm at 11 a.m. today: www.philly.com/tvchat.