'We basically did Top Gun in space': 'Star Trek Starfleet Academy' warps back into action in March 2027 for sophomore year in the final frontier

NEW YORK — Set your phasers to back-to-school, space fans. Star Trek is going back to Starfleet Academy for season 2, and we finally have a release date.

The sophomore season of "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" will warp back to the small screen in March 2027 when the limited series returns for its final season on Paramount+. The series, which follows a class of cadets balancing Starfleet classes, space adventures (and yes, some love) in the 32nd century, will return with its full cast and even add new faces, showrunners announced at a panel at New York Comic Con 2026 on Saturday (Oct. 10).

"Season one is about letting go of who you were in the past to start again at Starfleet Academy," executive producer and co-showrunner Noga Landau said in the Star Trek panel. "Season two is about thinking that you knew who you were, only to realize that as you grow older, your life is going to go in directions you didn't expect, and you're going to have to shift your perception of yourself. So it's really about sophomore year, right?"

Holly Hunter returns as academy chancellor Nahla Ake, a long-lived half-Lanthanite, who will have to face a familiar face in her estranged father, Nyk Ake, portrayed by Bill Nighy (Living, About Time) in season two.

"He plays my full lanthanide father, who has basically, if he wants, can achieve immortality," Hunter said, dropping a big preview about her character in season two. "He plays my dad, and I play me ... and my twin, my twin sister. Very fun."

Also joining this year's Starfleet Academy class is Rosemarie DeWitt (Untamed, The Staircase) as Laytha Sadal, the First Lady of Betazed (and mother of Academy cadet Tarima).

Bill Nighy on Starfleet Academy Season 2 as Nyk Ake, father of the chancellor Nahla Ake.Michael Gibson/Paramount+Rosemarie DeWitt (right) on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy as the First Lady of Betazed.Michael Gibson/Paramount+

"We have had such a blast," Hunter said of working with the entire cast of Starfleet Academy. "It was a tremendous honor and learning experience for me to do the show for two seasons, and I just really am excited about the second season because there's so much more intimacy that we just comfortably felt with each other over those 10 episodes."

In season one, Starfleet Academy brought back Trek's favorite Emergency Medical Hologram, The Doctor (Robert Picardo), then gave the 800-year-old Star Trek: Voyager physician a daughter in the photonic Sam (Kerrice Brooks) and a Klingon medical student, Jay-Den Kraag (Karim Diané), to train.

"His future existence is forever changed. Nothing will ever be the same for the character," Picardo said in the panel. "The shock of that, and how that changed the character, [...] informs all of season two. My primary relationships are now with my daughter and of course with Jay-Den, as I'm mentoring him as a future physician, and we have some terrific scenes together as well."

Executive producer and co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman promised more space action in season two of Starfleet Academy and showed an exclusive teaser clip of Academy cadets Caleb (Sandro Rosta), Genesis (Bella Shepard) and Sam as they race to recover data from a crashed spaceship on their first away mission. But the best, Kurtzman said, is yet to come when the show's cadets meet up with Nova Squadron, the elite flight team at Starfleet Academy.

"The Nova Squadron episode is amazing on a lot of different levels," Kurtzman said. "We basically did Top Gun in space. "What's available to us now technologically allowed us to go to a place that I don't think we've ever gone to on television before. Certainly not in Star Trek."

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will return to TV in March 2027 on the Paramount+ streaming platform.