Alec Baldwin, Jack McBrayer were having dinner–together–and Tina Fey had found freedom picking up roadside trash. The hit NBC show “30 Rock” will take it from there when the new season debuts. And, yes, Kim Jong Il will be back, too.

NBC has released a five-minute preview of the upcoming season that updates fans on where the show’s zany characters and plot lines left off.

As you may recall, hard-charging executive Jack Donaghy had been left to fend for himself. His journalist wife Avery (Elizabeth Banks) was kidnapped in North Korea.

Producer Robert Carlock said the story line won’t die along with the Korean dictator.

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Instead, Fey and the show’s writers worked his death into the show, he told UsWeekly. “Jack’s love life is pretty complicated and it just got more complicated because I think, technically, Avery is the First Lady of North Korea,” Carlock said.

“We sort of went back to the script because we’d already shot eight or nine episodes and we realized that luckily we hadn’t referred to King Jong Il by name yet, just to North Korea in general,” he added.

“We can’t go back and address the changes there, but the fun puzzle is turning around and trying to figure out how to get her out of there and how to continue things,” Carlock said.

“Maybe we’ll have to have Margaret Cho showing up again having faked her death, because she wants to get a gig on a morning talk show.”

Meanwhile, cheerful, obedient NBC page Kenneth Parcell (McBrayer) tries to cheer Jack by cooking him dinner at his apartment. Jack, however, gets a little fixated. “See these earrings,” he says. “Put them on.”

As if he doesn’t have enough problems, Liz Lemon (Fey) is desperate for a break, and can’t seem to get away from the office–until she’s assigned community service.

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Liz returns to the office completely re-energized and things seem to start going her way. She even finds a really handsome boyfriend. “She does have a new love interest. I don’t know how I met him, but I really have a handsome boyfriend (James Marsden)” Fey says.

“One thing that never changes is that Liz is hopeless when it comes to picking men,” says Baldwin. Jack disapproves of the boyfriend, of course.

Kelsey Grammer will return to the show in a guest spot, “playing a distorted alternate reality version of himself,” Fey reveals.

Among other highlights, Kristen Schaal joins the show as a regular cast member, playing Hazel, an NBC page. And, Denise Richards and Will Arnett return. Will plays Devon Banks, Jacks’s scourge and the sociopath in the executive suite.

Season 6 episode 1, “Dance Like Nobody’s Watching,” premieres Jan. 12 at 8P.M. EST. Check out the preview below.