Exploding robotic dogs, supercomputing diamonds and underground volcanos. This is why I love this series. Seriously. Eureka is at its best when it mixes wacky science with wackier characters and stirs. This week, everything came together perfectly. Let us start with the exploding robotic dogs. The nail-biting (and backbiting) competition among real dog fanciers was sent up perfectly, up to the end with Fargo's new best friend Sparky. Having known professional dog breeders, I laughed. Um. Perhaps a little more than would be polite, really.

Guest stars! Alan Ruck was a delight in his rogue seismologist role. Was anyone else having flashbacks to the end of "The Incredibles" when his tunneler broke through, or were you too busy singing, "Let my Cameron go"? I will pretend for the sake of the rest of his performance to pretend a gas chromatograph could do what he said it could do. (I only died a little inside. It's Eureka. It does that. Like standing next to a spurting hot lava flow.

) Frances Fisher continues her intriguing turn as Thorn, and the plot of season three seems to revolve around her interest in the nuclear (?) testing that went on way back when.

Allison in a wedding dress has significantly more attitude than Allison in business attire. This was great to see, even if she did get covered in mud by the end. And Jo offering to go shopping with her (and scaring Stark in the process) was worth the price of admission alone. The love triangle is continuing, with the Jack/Stark fans getting a shot in the arm this week, and the Jack/Allison 'shippers aren't unhappy either. There's going to be so very many 'fics written after this.

It was great to see Henry back in the shop, and even better to see him talking to Jack at the end. Those two have a great rapport, and they are the second backbone of the series after Jack and Zoe. Speaking of Zoe, it was a little weird to see Henry tutoring her, but I guess they needed to shoehorn in Jack's sudden appreciation for acoustic power somehow. She's still on the path to intellectual stardom, and it's lovely seeing her dad (and everyone else) keep encouraging her, even if it does drive her up the wall.

Overall, this was a fantastic episode, filled in every way with the things I love about the show. Can't wait to see what they do next week.