SG-1 is captured by bounty hunter Aris Boch, who informs them that Sokar has a price on their heads. He offers to let them win back their freedom in exchange for helping him catch his real target, a Goa'uld named Keltar, but the mission becomes complicated when Keltar claims that he is actually a Tok'ra.
"Deadman Switch" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alien Blood: Aris Boch has thick, yellowish-green blood, as seen when Carter treats his gunshot wound. This is given a Hand Wave. It's implied to not actually be blood, but various medical substances he is putting on the wound to heal it.
- Always Someone Better: Every step of the way, Aris Boch bests SG-1 and they never manage to overpower/outfox him.
- Blessed with Suck: Boch's race is immune to implantation by Goa'uld symbiote, but he doesn't see this as a particularly good thing since it led the Goa'uld to hunt them to near-extinction.
- Brick Joke: After the team is captured, Daniel inquires as to their value, and is mildly put out when Boch tells him that he is worth by far the least, unlikely to fetch more than a day's rations. At the end of the episode, Boch admits that he was just messing with Daniel and the price on his head is as high as anyone's for figuring out how to work the stargate in the first place. Daniel does not find this particularly reassuring.
- Bounty Hunter: Aris Boch describes himself as one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, having endeared himself to the Goa'uld through his ruthlessness.
- Cyanide Pill: The Tok'ra operative plans to swallow a poison capsule so that he won't be able to betray his people if Boch succeeds in delivering him to Sokar. This actually triggers Boch's realization that the Tok'ra are different from the Goa'uld after all, as no Goa'uld would be selfless enough to take their own life for the sake of another.
- Decoy Backstory: Aris Boch offers to let SG-1 go if they help him capture a bounty of greater value, while claiming that he's trying to buy his wife and son out of slavery. Said bounty turns out to be a Tok'ra operative named Korra, who explains that Boch lied about having a family: the Goa'uld addicted the survivors of his species to the drug he keeps putting in his water, and he works for them in exchange for resupply.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: After O'Neill zats Boch, he and Daniel head back to Boch's cargo ship with the intention of flying it to the nearest planet with a stargate, only to discover that they can't break Carter and Teal'c out of the holding bay and the ship has a Self-Destruct Mechanism that they can't disarm. Boch lets them squirm over this for a while, before casually revealing that he's immune to the energy from a zat blast and the self-destruct was never armed in the first place, asking whether they really believed he would give them a weapon that could actually hurt him.
- Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Lampshaded.Boch: Contrary to popular human belief, Earth is not the center of the universe.
- Escape Pod: Teal'c and Boch use them to escape the cargo ship after Boch sets off the self-destruct mechanism to fake his death.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Boch claims that his son is enslaved by Sokar and his motivation for doing what he does is the hope that he might one day be able to free him. However, this turns out to be a subversion as it's revealed he doesn't even have a son.
- Faking the Dead: Boch fakes his own death to allow SG-1 and the Tok'ra escape after Teal'c convinces him that he has another choice besides continuing to work for the people who enslaved his race.
- Famed In-Story: SG-1 finds out that they've earned quite a reputation throughout the galaxy when Boch is able to recognize them all on sight and informs them that they have prices on their heads. On the other side of things, Boch seems a little insulted that they haven't heard of him.Boch: Well, I know you: Captain Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, the Jaffa traitor Teal'c, and Colonel Jack O'Neill.
O'Neill: Well, fancy that. We're famous. - Fantastic Drug: Boch is apparently addicted to a blue substance called roshna that he is repeatedly seen putting into his water.
- Faux Affably Evil: Boch comes across this way at first, before it's revealed that he's not even really evil.
- Finger Wag: Boch delivers this to SG-1 after luring them into a trap, expecting them to rescue Carter and attempt to overpower him, so he returns in the cargo ship.
- Forced into Evil: Boch essentially became a bounty hunter to win the favor of the Goa'uld and dissuade them from killing him after they wiped out most of his race and enslaved the rest.
- Government Drug Enforcement: The Goa'uld deliberately got Boch's race addicted to the roshna by putting it into their water supply in order to keep them subservient. It's stated that if they were to run out, they would eventually die.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Teal'c attempts to pull one by trading places with the Tok'ra and allowing Boch to deliver him to Sokar instead, but it becomes unnecessary when Boch has a change of heart and lets them all go free.
- Human Alien: Boch looks entirely human from the outside, but his Alien Blood and his species' physiology is apparently just different enough that they are able to resist Goa'uld implantation.
- I Gave My Word: Invoked by Boch, who claims that his "word is good on over two thousand planets" when O'Neill asks why they should trust him; O'Neill retorts that there are billions of planets. He does prove himself to be a man of his word, however, when he is willing to let the team go free and just give Sokar the Tok'ra.
- Like an Old Married Couple: O'Neill and Daniel start bickering like one while trying to remember the password that Boch used to get inside the cargo ship.Daniel: Barkna. It was barkna.
[Nothing happens]
O'Neill: ...Well, if was barkna the door would be opening, wouldn't it?
Daniel: This was your idea.
O'Neill: Well you're the linguist.
Daniel: Well, I don't remember.
O'Neill: Well try! - Meaningful Echo: The idea of being "choiceless" is brought up repeatedly throughout the episode.
- No-Sell: When O'Neill shoots Boch with the zat, though he pretends to go down at first just to mess with them.
- "Not So Different" Remark: This is Boch's view of the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra, though he changes his mind by the end of the episode.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Boch takes off his armor to reveal a gunshot wound and gets out a medical kit, resulting in this exchange:Boch: Dr. Jackson, if you wouldn't mind...? [Daniel looks blank] ...Treating my wound?
Daniel: I'm an archaeologist.
Boch: I know. But you're also a doctor.
Daniel: ...Of archaeology. - Oh, Crap!: When O'Neill notices the self-destruct countdown on the cargo ship.
- Pardon My Klingon:Boch: And you, O'Neill, you're considered — Well, you're a pain in the mikta.
O'Neill: ...Neck?
Teal'c: No. - Punch-Clock Villain: Aris Boch is revealed to be one; he hates the Goa'uld as much as the heroes do and doesn't particularly enjoy his work, but he views any attempt to challenge the Goa'uld as futile. The team manage to convince him otherwise by the end of the episode.
- Some Kind Of Forcefield: Boch uses one to capture the team at the beginning of the episode, only discovered when Daniel walks into it face-first, causing it to briefly glow red. This particular version is the one-way variant, meaning that it can contain the team while still allowing Boch to shoot at them from the outside.
- Time Bomb: The self-destruct on the cargo ship is a particularly egregious example, with big flashing Goa'uld numbers counting down to zero.
- Trust Password: Subverted; the Tok'ra states that Carter should be able to vouch for him as she would recognize him from Jolinar's memories, but Boch realizes this and prevents her from going to meet him with the others.
- Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Boch at the end of the episode, after he changes his mind about handing Teal'c over to be tortured by Sokar.Boch: Hey guys, what about me? Don't I get a thank you?
Carter: For doing the right thing for a change?
Boch: Well, it's kind of a backhanded show of appreciation, but I'll take it. - What Happened to the Mouse?: Neither Boch nor any of his people are seen or heard from again. Their fate is addressed in the comic books, however.
- Where's the Kaboom?: Boch allows the countdown on the self-destruct to run down to zero, causing everyone to freeze in anticipation for a moment before they realize there's no explosion and he admits it was a bluff.
