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, british columbia, 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 of 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.