At one point in the episode, Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) asks Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) how he can remain so calm. He responds with a shrug, "I think in another life I handled dangerous explosives." This is a sly reference to the title role in Anderson's previous series, MacGyver (1985), in which his character, Angus MacGyver, had a background as a bomb disposal expert and frequently used this knowledge to fashion explosives out of ordinary objects or substances.
Teal'c has been brainwashed to think his name is Tor. This could be a reference to Tor Alexander Valenza, who wrote or edited numerous episodes of this series.
The basic idea of the episode was taken from the the 1927 Movie Metropolis. The cityscape seen from Administrator Calders office is an homage to Metropolis.