We open with a man praying to a statue of a god with a lightning bolt riding in a chariot in front of the stargate. Lights flash and SG-1 arrives on the planet. The man hides, believing them to be gods. The team finds him hiding with his very pregnant wife, and help is needed delivering the baby. Everyone looks at Carter, but Daniel ends up being the "expert" having done it once before. Very thankful, the couple brings them back to their village where a huge party is going on. Turns out that all these people do is enjoy life and party, for everyone is given 100 days of bliss. During the party, O'Neill is fed a strange cake by a woman who had been making eyes at him. He becomes intoxicated or something and the woman performs an elaborate dance for him and brings him to her bed. Later on people all walk into the building and just pass out into a deep sleep. The team is confused by this, even Jack who seems to be snapping out of it. Then he passes out asleep as well.
As soon as the sun rises, they all awaken. To their surprise, they find that the baby they had delivered the day before is now walking around like any one-year-old boy. Then they realize that the people on the planet are aging very rapidly, and it seems that O'Neill is now being affected as well. Daniel and Teal'c find a fancy Goa'uld tablet in the base of the statue, which describes what happened to these people. A Goa'uld tampered with them so that they would age very rapidly in order that he could return in a few hundred years to see how humans evolve. At the risk of bringing back another virus, the team obtains blood samples from Jack and leaves him on the planet.
Jack continues to age rapidly into grey hair and wrinkles, and gets to know his new woman. Dr. Fraiser and Carter discover nanomachines in the blood that appear to be causing the rapid aging. They have no idea how to stop it, so they send through supplies to Jack and say their goodbyes via a little video recording, since they can't come back and risk being infected themselves.
Despondent, Jack lectures the people about their so called god, and how they have been robbed of tens thousands of days of their lives, since they only live 100 days. He gets them riled up and they pull down the statue. Jack and the woman wander off away from the village, and when night falls, they find that they didn't fall asleep. It turns out the statue holds a transmitter to make everyone fall asleep and wake up, and the wake up part is broken. Jack calls Earth and they come back and figure out how to wake everyone up. With the transmitter now disabled, the nanomachines don't do anything, and they are all free to live their full intended human lives.
"Brief Candle" contains examples of the following tropes:
- Boldly Coming: This is actually something of a deconstruction; O'Neill only sleeps with Kynthia because he was drugged, and he winds up contracting a deadly STD as a result.
- Delivery Guy: When the team encounters a woman in labor on stepping through the gate, Daniel is able to deliver her baby, having apparently done so once before.O'Neill: You never cease to amaze me with your endless talents.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Though it wasn't intentional, Kynthia essentially date-rapes O'Neill by giving him a drugged 'marriage cake'. None of the characters, including O'Neill, seem to recognize this for what it is; Carter is disapproving and acts as though he's been seduced, while O'Neill and Kynthia later establish a close friendship while he's stuck on the planet.
- Evilutionary Biologist: The Goa'uld Pelops apparently shortened the lifespans of the Argosian people in order to study human evolution.
- The Hedonist: The Argosians are an entire race of Hedonists due to their dramatically shortened lifespans.
- Inhumanly Beautiful Race: The Argosians are allegedly this.Daniel: Look at these people. I guess they've never heard the word "unattractive" here.
- Mayfly–December Romance: O'Neill and Kynthia.
- Nanomachines: Carter and Fraiser are able to determine that these are the cause of the artificial aging in O'Neill and the Argosians.
- Never Say Goodbye: O'Neill orders the rest of the team not to say goodbye when they initially leave him on the planet.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Daniel in particular is outraged by Hammond's order that O'Neill should be left on Argos.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: When it becomes clear that someone will have to deliver the baby, the men in the team instantly look to Carter, who hastily responds that she doesn't know what to do. Though it's more likely that they're looking at her as the only woman in the group.
- Rapid Aging: After being infected with the nanites, O'Neill begins to age even faster than the Argosians, as the nanites are apparently compensating for his natural age.
- Really 700 Years Old: To the Argosians, those on SG-1 are this. Jack even tries to explain what a year is, but they don't understand that concept. Jack is already about 170-times older than their lifespan.
- Reset Button: Downplayed. Though Jack is back to normal by the next episode, it's noted that his aged appearance will fade gradually rather than instantly as his body restores itself without the destructive nanites.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: O'Neill never had the most tact to begin with, but his artificial age ramps it up another notch.
- Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The title is a reference to a Macbeth soliloquy about the inevitability of death:To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. - STD Immunity: Averted.
- You Didn't Ask: When Teal'c offhandedly mentions that the writing on the base of the Pelops statue is an obscure dialect of Goa'uld:Daniel: And you didn't think to tell me this before?Teal'c: You never before inquired.
- Younger Than They Look: All of the Argosians, most of whom are established to be somewhere between one and forty days old.
