Whilst exploring P7J-989, SG-1 ends up trapped inside of a virtual reality program that traps them inside of traumatic memories; Jack watching a Black Ops mission with Kawalsky that ended up going awry, while Daniel is forced to witness his parents' tragic death... over, and over, again.
Eventually the Gamekeeper shows up, explaining that all of this is for the benefit of the natives, who have been undergoing pretty much the same thing for the last thousand years and had naturally gotten bored of nothing new to watch. As it turns out, the people of the planet accidentally destroyed the ecosystem of the world they lived on and decided to go into hibernation until everything got better.
However, the Gamekeeper has been lying to them about the surface being safe, fearing they would destroy the beautiful Eden-like garden world that exists outside of the virtual environment... and now SG-1 just told them about it.
The episode ends with the residents awakening, immediately driving the Gamekeeper insane as they begin picking the flowers in the Garden, and the audience isn't sure whether there was a Green Aesop there or not.
"The Gamekeeper" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Back from the Dead: Kawalsky, only not really.
- Casting Gag: Dwight Schultz plays a neurotic yet brilliant man who has an unhealthy obsession with VR simulations, in a clear echo of one of his other famous roles.
- Commie Land: Jack's Black Ops mission takes place here, specifically in East Germany in 1982.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Both Jack and Daniel; lampshaded by the Keeper when he states that they have enough material between them to keep his residents occupied for another thousand years.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Every time O'Neill tries to change the outcome of the botched mission, something else goes wrong and his CO Colonel Michaels still dies.
- Dream Emergency Exit: SG-1 is trapped in an alien virtual reality, and accidentally discover the way out when they chase the game master through a door with his symbol on it.
- Large Ham: The Keeper.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: An inverted example where the characters are forced to relive some of their worst memories.
- New Eden: The once-polluted surface of the planet of the week has since transformed into a beautiful garden world.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Played for drama every time Daniel tries to get his parents out from under the cover stone; since he was a child in the memory, they assume he's just looking for attention and send him away.
- Polluted Wasteland: P7J-989 was devastated by a chemical disaster in 976. By the time of SG-1's arrival in 1998, the biosphere had completely recovered but the Keeper hid this from the residents of the virtual reality in order to keep them inside.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Subverted. The Keeper initially tells O'Neill and Daniel that they've been given a chance to correct the past, but it turns out that they're actually just experiencing a virtual reality and nothing they do will change the outcome of events anyway.
- Speak in Unison: After the team is released from the virtual reality chairs for the second time:O'Neill: This is real this time, right?[cue the Keeper freaking out about the residents "ruining" his garden.]O'Neill & Daniel: It's real.
- Spotting the Thread: The team is able to realize that they're still in the chairs after the Keeper pretends to release them the first time because the real General Hammond would never order them to go back into the virtual reality.
- Too Dumb to Live: While this may seem harsh, Daniel's parents standing underneath a multi-ton stone slab as it is being lifted and placed on some large stone columns and wall wasn't the smartest thing to do.
- Touched by Vorlons: In addition to Teal'c being protected by his symbiote, the chairs are unable to access Carter's memories due to the imprint left on her mind by Jolinar.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The Keeper resets the scenarios every time Jack and Daniel fail, and he encourages them to try different approaches. They both come up with a tactic he didn't expect: Rage Quit.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Keeper kept the other inhabitants of his planet trapped in a virtual reality for over a thousand years because he didn't want them to re-pollute the environment.
- Your Worst Memory: Both O'Neill and Daniel have to experience this over the course of their simulations.
