I hadn’t read Stephen King’s Under the Dome before the show premiered on CBS last summer — I still haven’t — so I have no clue how faithful/unfaithful an adaptation it is. In fact, I didn’t know much about it at all, aside from a lingering impression that the concept didn’t sound like it had the narrative legs to expand to an ongoing television series. Pretty much the only reason I eventually sat down and watched Under the Dome’s first season a few weeks back was the involvement of writer Brian K. Vaughan, who has given us some of the best comics of the past decade, as well as having written for Lost. So now that I’ve learned that Vaughan has parted ways with Under the Dome, my interest in the show just folded like triple-jointed origami expert.

Vaughan revealed his departure from Under the Dome, which is due to return to CBS for a second season this summer, during a lengthy interview with Bleeding Cool (which is worth reading in its entirety if you’re at all a Vaughan fan). In lieu of an official announcement, he just dropped it casually when asked what his role in the show this season will be. Vaughan said:

Under the Dome was an unexpected breakout hit for CBS last summer, so of course the supposedly limited run got extended for a second season. The new episodes begin Monday, June 30, and the network has released a new trailer/preview to hint at what’s in store for fans next season, and we’ve got news of at least one more new cast member.

If nothing else, the debut episode should be a doozy. First off, Stephen King, who wrote the book the show is based on, penned the script, and given his penchant for plot twists and turns, that alone should be enough to make this interesting. We’ve also been promised multiple deaths, and executive producer Neal Baer states again here that two key players won’t make it through the premiere alive.

Anytime the Academy Awards rolls around, there’s usually an outcry from fans that not enough genre films are recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Luckily, this year the movie that has the most nominations is Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, but even if the Academy doesn’t give science fiction the respect it deserves, there are several long-standing and prestigious awards focused specifically on honoring genre material. Last night we posted the Nebula Award nominations, and now the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films has announced its nominees for the 40th annual Saturn Awards.

Unsurprisingly, Gravity is a front-runner for the Saturns as well, earning eight nominations including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actress for Sandra Bullock, Best Supporting Actor for George Clooney, and Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón. Gravity is tied with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug for the most nominations. Some of the other nominees for Best Science Fiction Film are Ender’s Game, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Pacific Rim, Riddick, and Star Trek Into Darkness.

There’s nothing like killing off a beloved character to spice up a TV series. Hell, they don’t even have to be popular as long as they’re moderately important. You can use this tactic to add some drama to a show that’s flagging, get rid of actors that want to leave the show, or because you damn well feel like it. The Walking Dead does it all the time just to mark big moments in the show—every time there’s a premiere or a finale, get out the body bags—and Game of Thrones kills so many people they have to keep adding new characters or there’d barely be anyone left to murder. Not to be left out, CBS’ hit drama Under the Dome has promised key deaths when the show returns for its second season this summer.

Talking to TV Guide, Dome producers indicated that two prominent players in the series won’t make it out of the season two premiere alive. When asked, executive producer Neal Baer said, “The dome giveth, and the dome taketh away.” While that doesn’t really mean anything to anyone, when the interviewer pressed the matter further, Baer did provide a collection of six names that could be on the proverbial chopping block.

The only addition to CBS’ Under the Dome that would make me happy would be a giant red “[CANCELLED]” stamp, but the show is putting together its second season whether I like it or not. (As such, I’ll leave my snarkiness at the Dome’s door.) The trapped town of Chester’s Mill has just added two more to its population, as CSI: NY alum Eddie Cahill, and Misfits‘ Karla Crome have joined the cast of increasingly neurotic characters who are all trying to realize why their friends and neighbors are now total psycho asshats.

The bad guy throughout season one was Big Jim Rennie, played with vague menace by Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris. He managed to get a lot of the Mill community behind him and his autocratic leadership, but he’ll soon have another hero joining Dale “Barbie” Barbara in trying to reapply law and order to the town. Cahill will star as Sam, who happens to be Big Jim’s brother-in-law that was never, ever referenced in the first season. Sam is described as a handsome hermit (which is obviously why we didn’t know he existed yet) and a former EMT who will eventually butt heads with his big-headed in-law. He will also “form a deep connection” with Julia, who apparently has no trouble getting it on with other men so soon after her husband goes missing.

Admittedly, we didn’t get too far into CBS’ heavily hyped summer series Under the Dome before we recognized it as a stinking combination of overacting and bad writing. We left it alone, silently hoping audiences would give up like we did and no one would ever have to hear about it again. But that didn’t happen, ad CBS gave it a second season almost immediately. Now they’ve announced that season two will premiere on Monday, June 30. The network has also officially declared that Halle Berry’s astronaut mystery Extant will debut a few days later on Wednesday, July 2. I know which one I’m more excited about.

Season two of Under the Dome already sounds more interesting than the first, as Stephen King himself will pen the first episode. This is a strange turn of events, since this season moves beyond the events of his massive novel, but fitting enough. (It must be strange to return to a former project in such a different capacity.) Writer Brian K. Vaughan said King gave the writers ideas they’d never imagined, and talked about how the titular dome that seemed to be a trap was actually keeping them safe, and that we can expect to see the outside coming into Chester’s Mill. I wish they’d have gotten to this point midway through the first season. All that interpersonal drama needed something bigger going on around it.