Daniel: Colonel Edwards has no experience dealing with the Unas.
O'Neill: Nor you.
A member of SG-11 is brutally killed while mining for naquadah on another planet, where it turns out his team have inadvertently provoked a tribe of native Unas by disturbing their sacred ground. Daniel wants to try and find a diplomatic solution to the problem but clashes with Colonel Edwards, the leader of the mining operation, who favors a more violent approach.
This episode is the first to feature Major Lorne, who will go on to be a huge player in Stargate Atlantis, and the last to feature Lieutenant General Vidrine (though he is mentioned later).
"Enemy Mine" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Ankle Drag: Lt. Ritter gets dragged this way at the beginning of the episode.
- Badass Longcoat: Chaka wears one now.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Comes up a lot, since Col. Edwards is unused to dealing with Daniel and spends much of the episode totally bewildered by his unorthodox methods and complete lack of regard for military procedure. O'Neill informs him that despite the attitude problem, Daniel is usually right in such matters, and Edwards sums it up at the end of the episode:Edwards: O'Neill was right about you. You are a pain in the ass... but well worth it.
- Call-Back:
- Ritter being dragged away at the beginning of the episode is very reminiscent of when the same the happened to Daniel in "The First Ones".
- Daniel tries to mime a spaceship in order to demonstrate to the Unas what the naquadah would be used for.
- Chekhov's Gun: Daniel's lighter, which he gives to Iron Shirt as a peace offering at the episode's climax after demonstrating it to Chaka earlier on.
- Continuity Nod:
- Daniel mentions that Chaka helped lead an uprising of the Unas on another planet.
- General Vidrine makes a comment indicating that the Prometheus is still stranded on Tagrea.
- Dead Guy on Display: Ritter is found this way after being taken by the Unas, along with several other corpses in various stages of decomposition.
- Due to the Dead: The Unas mourn their dead after the first clash with the humans.
- Enemy Mine:
- Only comes into play at the end of the episode, when the Unas agree to work the naquadah mine in order to help the humans in the fight against the Goa'uld. The title of the episode is not actually a reference to this trope, however, but to the film of the same name.
- The Unas themselves as they live on the planet divided up into many small tribes, but will immediately unite to fight an outside threat (such as the humans).
- Happy Place: O'Neill tells Daniel to go to his happy place when he starts bitching at Lorne for moving artifacts because they were "in the way".
- Headbutting Heroes: Daniel and Edwards don't really get along, though they do seem to develop some measure of respect for each other by the end.
- Humans Are Bastards: Aside from Daniel, pretty much everyone is OK with either eradicating the Unas or forcibly relocating them simply because they're sitting on a giant hunk of naquadah.
- Non-Answer: When Daniel and Chaka attempt to make contact with the native Unas, Daniel asks how long they're supposed to wait. Chaka's answer is simply "as long as it takes".
- Oh, Crap!: When Daniel realizes just how many Unas are living on the planet, and then again when hundreds of them appear on the ridge overlooking base camp, completely surrounding the humans.
- One-Product Planet: The planet is coveted as a naquadah mine and not much else.
- Out of Focus: Carter only appears for one very brief scene visiting O'Neill in the infirmary, with the excuse that she's busy overhauling the gate diagnostics system.
- Pun-Based Title: The episode title refers to both the film of the same name and the naquadah mine, which causes conflict between the Tau'ri and the native Unas.
- The Radio Dies First: A minor plot point throughout the episode is that the presence of naquadah somehow interferes with the radio signals, making it difficult for the various characters to get in contact with each other at times when they really need to do so.
- Red Shirt: Lt. Ritter, whose unfortunate demise kicks off the episode.
- Replacement Flat Character: Edwards replaces O'Neill as the shoot-first-ask-questions-later military man clashing with Daniel's more diplomatic approach, since O'Neill is far too knowledgeable not to at least hear Daniel out by now. This is duly lampshaded.Daniel: (to O'Neill) I guess I just spent a lot of time breaking you in, I just didn't wanna have to start with a new colonel.
- Send in the Search Team: O'Neill, Daniel and Teal'c are initially called out to the planet to search for Ritter, since Edwards's team apparently lacks the resources to conduct a search on their own.
- Tastes Like Friendship: Daniel once again falls back on his tried and tested method for befriending hostile aliens during his first meeting with Iron Shirt.
- Translator Buddy: Daniel brings in Chaka for this purpose to help him communicate with the native Unas, since he doesn't understand enough of their language to handle the negotiations on his own.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Lorne quickly loses his lunch after finding what's left of Ritter.
- Warhawk: Edwards' immediate reaction to the Unas threat is to increase his men's ammo rations and send out attack parties; he doesn't consider the possibility of a diplomatic solution.
