Zero Hour (Stargate SG-1) - Production

Production

Despite being fourth in the airing order, "Zero Hour" was filmed as the seventh out of the twenty episodes of Season 8. The limited availability of Richard Dean Anderson (Jack O'Neill), who only worked 3.5 days out of five working days a week during the eighth season, extended the seven-day filming period to four weeks. With "Zero Hour" being a bottle episode to save money, director Peter Woeste filmed the majority of the episode on the standing SGC sets at The Bridge Studios, Vancouver, Canada. The labs of Dr. Lee and Carter were filmed in the same room of the standing set, and a storage room for filming equipment was remodeled into the office of Gilmor. Second unit director Andy Mikita was responsible for the off-world scenes of the SG teams, filmed in Tynehead Park, one the few undeveloped Vancouver locations that still allows filming. O'Neill in his sleeping quarters was the episode's last filmed scene, shot in two takes to allow Anderson to catch his flight home to Los Angeles.

The inspiration for the episode came from the SG-1 writers wondering for years what George Hammond, the SGC leader from seasons one through seven, does while SG-1 is away on missions. Imagined scenarios ranged from the general dealing with minor decisions like bunting and lunch buffet, to averting major emergencies and threats. The episode's working title was "A Day in the Life of General O'Neill", but writer Robert C. Cooper felt "Zero Hour" was more appropriate, referring to the President's visit at the end of the episode. The subplot of the SGC being overrun with plant life originates in a Season 4 idea by writer and producer Brad Wright. To not interrupt the shooting process, the set was decorated with various plants and vines overnight. Some plants were plastic, but real plants were used for the torching scenes, sprayed to be flame retardant so as not to burn the whole set. Jim Menard as the director of photography was responsible for the green lighting when the emergency lighting goes off. He achieved depth by using differently-colored lights in the control room and near the gate.

"Zero Hour" features several guest stars. Los Angeles actor David Kaufman was brought in to play the part of Mark Gilmor, a red herring to the story. Cliff Simon, flown in from L.A. for a day's work, filmed most of his scenes as Ba'al against green-screen in the gateroom for a "hologram feel". Bill Dow (Dr. Lee) was doing theater work in Vancouver during the filming of this episode, necessitating the producers to schedule around his availability. Gary Jones's character, an SG-1 semi-regular technician who sported the name "Norman Davis" on his uniform for years, received a new name in this episode: "Walter Harriman". After O'Neill had referred to him as "Walter" in the Season 4 episode "2010", the producers could not get clearance for a renaming into "Walter Davis". The new name is based on General Hammond referring to Jones's character as "Airman" (sounding like "Harriman") in the pilot episode, and SG-1 writer Joseph Mallozzi explained the resulting incongruity as a married-name issue. One scene in "Zero Hour" features Pierre Bernard, a graphic designer for the NBC show Late Night with Conan O'Brien, as technician O'Brien. The SG-1 producers saw Bernard ranting on Late Night about Stargate SG-1 being better without Daniel Jackson (actor Michael Shanks was not part of SG-1 during Season 6), and gave him a cameo spot.