Recap / Stargate SG 1 S 8 E 4 Zero Hour

"Your flagship team is in the hands of the enemy, you can't dial the stargate, and the base is overrun by an alien plant."

— Mark Gilmor

O'Neill is introduced to his new aide, Mark Gilmor, as he struggles to cope with the pressures of commanding the SGC, with one crisis after another piling up while an impending visit from the President looms on the horizon. To make matters worse, Ba'al claims to have captured SG-1, and threatens to kill them unless O'Neill gives him Camulus in exchange.

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"Zero Hour" provides examples of the following tropes:

• Alien Kudzu: The alien plant that Dr. Lee spends most of the episode trying to kill, as it takes over several levels of the base. His solution ends up accidentally foiling the plot to blow up Earth.
• Already Met Everyone: Discussed and lampshaded at the beginning of the episode, when O'Neill officially briefs his former team for the first time as General.
  Carter: General.
  O'Neill: Colonel. You've all met?
  Daniel: Yes, actually, we all know each others' life stories.
  O'Neill: Is that snippiness?
  Daniel: Is that a word?
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  Gilmor: Dr. Lee needs to see you right away concerning the plant from P6J-908, SG-1 and 3 are in the gate room preparing to embark and, uh... oh, it turns out the red white and blue bunting is unavailable.
  O'Neill: No bunting?
• Beleaguered Assistant: Gilmor plays this role for O'Neill. Walter also has some shades of it when he's briefing O'Neill at the beginning of the episode.
• Brick Joke: Towards the beginning of the episode, O'Neill locks the bickering Amran delegates in the VIP suite together to work out their differences, and promptly forgets all about them in the chaos that follows. In the final scene he asks if Gilmor ever let them out, to which Gilmor reassures him that he did and that they seemed "much more amenable to negotiating" after the fact.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Lampshaded when Gilmor meets O'Neill for the first time.
  Gilmor: Well, he's not like other generals.
  Harriman: Actually, he's not like other people.
• The Cameo: The gate technician late in the episode is played by Pierre Bernard, a graphic designer on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. His rant on Stargate SG-1 during his recurring "Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage" gave the show so much attention, he was given this role as Sgt. O'Brien.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Reynolds tells Gilmor that O'Neill was once captured and tortured by Ba'al.
  • Camulus is still on Earth after requesting asylum to hide from Ba'al.
  • Major Davis suggests launchng an attack against Ba'al using the symbiote poison developed by the Tok'ra.
• Continuity Overlap: This episode takes place following the events of the Stargate Atlantis Pilot "Rising". Just as McKay and the others feared (and was implied on the Atlantis end), opening a Gate to Pegasus and sending the Expedition through depleted what was left of the Proclarush Taonas ZPM's charge. Being able to re-dial Pegasus is thus cited in-story as a motivation for acquiring Camulus' ZPM.
• Day in the Life: Actually five days, but the premise is the same with the episode focusing on the daily stresses O'Neill now has to contend with as commander of the SGC.
• Fakin' MacGuffin: O'Neill swaps out the booby-trapped ZPM that he was going to have Camulus take to Ba'al for the depleted one, to prevent Ba'al from figuring out how to use it as a weapon.
• First-Name Basis: Discussed while O'Neill is on the phone to Hammond:
  O'Neill: General, how are you? ...I know, sir, but every time I open my mouth to say "George", "General" comes out.
• Genocide Dilemma: O'Neill refuses to attack Ba'al's territories with the symbiote poison as will mean the deaths of thousands of Jaffa in his service.
• It's What I Do:
  Ba'al: You dare mock me?
  O'Neill: Ba'al, come on. You should know: of course I dare mock you.
  Ba'al: You have one more day. (His hologram disappears)
  Gilmor: Is it really wise to provoke him?
  O'Neill: It's what I do.
• Locked in a Room: O'Neill's strategy for dealing with the Amran delegates is to lock them in the VIP room together until they can work things out.
• Malicious Misnaming: O'Neill calls Camulus "Camel-ass" at one point.
• Mundane Solution: When Lee's plant starts growing exponentially and taking over the base, he explains that it's triggered by exposure to visible light. O'Neill's response is to casually reach over and flick the lights off.
• No One Gets Left Behind: When Gilmor asks, out of earshot of O'Neill, if it isn't already too late to rescue SG-1, Reynolds delivers an impassioned speech about how "no man or woman on the base" would give up on them. This is later driven home when he gathers what looks to be every available SG team in the gate room and tells O'Neill that they're ready to mount a rescue operation; he just has to give the order.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Lee is apparently trying his hand at botany now, having previously been involved in fields as diverse as physics and archaeology.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Ba'al finds out that SG-1 are missing after he witnesses them getting transported to Anubis's secret lab and takes the opportunity to tell O'Neill that he's taken them prisoner, hoping it will pressure O'Neill into turning Camulus over.
• Out of Focus: The team are absent for much of the episode in order to keep the focus on O'Neill adjusting to life as General.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: The "negotiations" between the Amran delegates.
  Delegate 1: The Plains of Goran are sacred ground!
  Delegate 2: To the plainsmen.
  Delegate 1: I am a plainsman.
  Delegate 2: (looking him over contemptuously) I know.
  Delegate 1: I take offence at that.
  Delegate 2: A fence? Now there's an idea...
• Prisoner Exchange: Subverted; O'Neill ignores Gilmor's protests and marches Camulus to the gate room, making out like he intends to turn him over to Ba'al in exchange for SG-1, but it turns out it was just a bluff to try and scare Camulus into revealing whatever information he might have.
• Secret Test of Character: Gilmor admits at the end of the episode that he was on a special assignment from the President to assess O'Neill's suitability for the job before the President officially endorses him as General. O'Neill claims that he already knew, as he'd been warned by Hammond
• Simple Solution Won't Work: Jack O'Neill is told by an SGC scientist that the alien plant is growing out of control by rapidly metabolizing sunlight. Jack wordlessly turns off the light of his office, with the obvious implication he will order the base's lights to be turned off, thinking that with no lights there won't be any growth. The scientist explaining the situation immediately tells him that 1) the plant will continue to grow like crazy even with the lights off (only a little bit slower) and 2) attempting pest control in pitch-black darkness is just asking for people to bumble around, probably get themselves hurt, and achieve nothing. O'Neill turns the lights back on and tells the scientist to Get Out! and fix this without having to bother him any further.
• Shout-Out: When the plant starts growing to monstrous proportions:
  Lee: Well, the good news is it hasn't eaten anybody yet.
  O'Neill: Well, thank you, Seymour.
• Spanner in the Works: Camulus' sabotaged ZPM is exposed by, of all things, the Gamma radiation Dr. Lee uses to try and kill the alien plant infestation.
• Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: Lee discovers that the ZPM Camulus leads them to is rigged to explode when an electrical charge is introduced. Carter later estimates that if plugged into the Ancient outpost in Antarctica, it could explode with enough force to destroy the entire solar system.
• Two of Your Earth Minutes:
  Ba'al: You have one day.
  O'Neill: Is that, like, one Earth day, or...?