Potpourri, part two

Since it worked so well the other day, let's once again quickly hit various things happening in the world of the telly:

• After "Chuck" aired its Christmas episode, there were still two produced episodes lying around. NBC originally planned to save them to air until there were more new episodes, post-strike, but now that the strike doesn't seem like it's ever gonna end, they're going to air both of them on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 8 and 10, sandwiched around "Celebrity Apprentice," which unfortunately didn't flop when it premiered last week.
  
• Speaking of leftover episodes, tomorrow night's a big deal, with new "My Name Is Earl," "Ugly Betty," "Grey's Anatomy" (the last one finished) and "30 Rock" (ibid). When the "30 Rock" Christmas episode aired, there were conflicting reports (on this blog, anyway) about whether it was the last one completed. Guess they were somehow able to cobble together a 10th episode. Maybe there are a lot of flashbacks midway through? Whatever it looks like, it's something resembling a full night's worth o' bloggable material.
• "Dirt," whose first season was a huge disappointment, given the subject matter and the channel it was on (I haven't liked other FX shows, but none have bored me that much) will be back with a strike-shortened season of seven episodes, beginning March. 2
  
• Not that it matters, with renewal no longer an issue, but "The Wire" season premiere was by far the lowest-rated of the series, with only 1.2 million viewers. I'm going to check with HBO about tracking the On Demand viewership to see whether putting each episode up six days early is taking away a significant chunk of the audience, or if it's just smaller overall this year.
• Just to make the previous bullet point seem even more depressing, A&E has ordered another season of "The Two Coreys."