What really happened to Dr John Woods?

Is Dr John Woods in Extant really dead? We see him in a seemingly inescapable situation and then, 6 months later, we hear someone claiming that he died. Given that season 2 is still running, do we have an out of universe confirmation of whether or not John actually died, or whether he is going to turn up in another 6 months having been beamed to safety by aliens or something?

I know that the supposedly correct thing to do is to wait and see as the series unfolds, but I'm not sure it's worth the invested attention. I'm definitely far more engaged with the humanichs "Pinocchio 2.0" thread than with the alien ghost story thread. I don't really want to sink 13 hours into a show I'm not really enjoying, just so that I'm up to speed on the off-chance that it picks up again.