Scorpion: Behind the Scenes on TV's Smartest Drama (PHOTOS)

The geniuses of Team Scorpion are facing some big tasks as Season 3 kicks off: stopping hackers intent on causing mayhem with the U.S.’s military arsenal and then heading into space.

But while the stakes are high on screen, the cast has found an easy dynamic when the cameras aren’t rolling. “The chemistry is so phenomenal,” Robert Patrick (Cabe) says. “When it works, it’s such an organic thing. You can pair us up [in different combinations] and we all get along.” Take a look behind the scenes of Scorpion’s October 3 and 10 episodes.

For the epic chase sequence in the season opener, Elyes Gabel (Walter, right) and his stunt double, Jake Hicks (left), filmed at a real marina in Los Angeles. “Scorpion is definitely different from shooting a normal procedural,” Gabel says. “The scope of our show is so big.”

“I love bringing my dogs on set for rehearsals because it’s such a big family affair,” says Katharine McPhee (Paige), with Wilma, one of her three pooches. “It’s insane—the dogs have babysitters all over the set thanks to cast and crew. So I quite enjoy the open dog policy. I’d be in trouble if there weren’t one.”

In the October 10 hour, Walter heads to space. “When you do scenes on your own, you find out more about the set because you have more time,” Gabel says. “I got to play around.”

In the Season 2 finale, Happy (Jadyn Wong) dropped the bombshell that she’s secretly married. The first episode back finds her “jumping into a case and not being able to sit down and talk about it” with boyfriend Toby (Eddie Kaye Thomas), Wong says. Complicating matters? “Happy cannot disclose details about the marriage.” But stay tuned: All will be revealed by mid-October.

When Walter loses oxygen in space, he starts to hallucinate visions of longtime crush Paige. “I wanted that version of her to be a little different, a little bit softer,” says McPhee (with Gabel and director Sanford Bookstaver). “Like an ethereal version of Paige, with a little more sense of self.”

Gabel took off on the boat for one scene—unaware that he wasn’t supposed to leave just yet! “I drive off going, ‘This is great. They’re obviously doing a real wide shot,’” he recalls. “Then I saw people trying to get me to return to port! But it was fun as hell.”

Hackers target the military’s ships and planes in the two-hour premiere, and “there’s definitely some peril,” teases Ari Stidham (left, with Scott Porter and Patrick) of Sylvester, Tim and Cabe’s predicament. Veteran actor Patrick brings something extra to every scene, Stidham says. “I learn a lot from him.”

Sometimes filming is cool and glamorous; other times actors are tasked with driving a random aluminum ball around, which makes it difficult for dialogue to be heard. “I had a lot of [postproduction recording],” says Gabel, with McPhee and second assistant director Ryan Tighe.

“We spend so much time together,” Thomas (with Wong) says of his castmates. “Sometimes we’re having very serious conversations, sometimes we’re being very silly with each other. It’s a unique experience to work with other actors this intensely for this long.”