CHICAGO (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from various wire reports each morning:

THE CIRCUIT (FOX, New!) - FOX has picked up another drama pilot, the legal entry "The Circuit." The series comes from executive producers Barry Levinson, James Yoshimura, Tom Fontana and Gavin Polone, whose Pariah TV label is attached. Yoshimura and Fontana ("Homicide: Life on the Street") wrote the pilot to the series, which details a circuit court case each week through the eyes of the jury. Episodes begin as the jury starts deliberations and the case then is told in flashback. The project was originally developed by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming at TNT however they are no longer involved.

THE O.C. (FOX) - Writer-producer Joseph Dougherty has joined the Warner Bros. TV-produced drama, as an executive producer/showrunner.

TWO AND A HALF MEN (CBS) - Jon Cryer ("The Trouble With Normal") will play Alan, the brother to Charlie Sheen's character in the CBS comedy pilot from Warner Bros. TV.

Sources: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Reuters