After some time spent picking up the pieces, 30 Rock has composed itself and is ready to issue a response. Here is that response from producer to Us Weekly (!)Robert Carlock:

“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 Kim Jong-Il by name yet — just to North Korea in general,” Carlock said. “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.”

That IS a fun puzzle, Mr. Carlock!

One red flag here is that the writers hadn’t abandoned this plotline eight episodes into the show. Yuck. How long were they planning on running with this? Of course, this is a show that has devolved the Kenneth character from cute country rube to depraved and devil-worshipping sheep banger, so who knows, really?