Played by Ben Browder, Cameron Mitchell is introduced as a main character in the season 9 premiere "Avalon", holding the military rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force.

With the aid of Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, the Jaffa Teal'c, and the alien thief Vala Mal Doran, Mitchell attempts to stop the Ori threat to the Milky Way galaxy during the series' run.

Despite Browder's popularity as former lead in the sci-fi TV series Farscape, Mitchell's role as the SG-1 leader attracted some viewers' resentment for taking over Carter's former position.

[2][3] As shown in Stargate: Continuum, Mitchell's grandfather was the captain of the ship that transported the Alpha Gate from Egypt to the United States in the late 1930s.

When Cameron Mitchell was a USAF Captain, he piloted an F-16 over the Middle Eastern desert and mistakenly bombed a vehicle containing innocent refugees rather than the enemy.

[7] Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter temporarily joins Mitchell's team in season 9's sixth episode, "Beachhead", which ends with Vala's disappearance.

[17] Browder considered Mitchell to be more restrained than his former Farscape character John Crichton, who had higher emotional stakes and was "literally going insane through the process of the series.

[18] Browder did not view Mitchell as a substitute for Richard Dean Anderson's role of Colonel Jack O'Neill, the undisputed SG-1 team leader from seasons 1 through 7.

[16] Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson) and Browder did not want to repeat the "cliché[d]" original O'Neill-Daniel dynamic where views on military and diplomacy clash.

[21] When Vala's relationship with the SG-1 team members evolved in season 10, the producers grew comfortable with pairing Browder's and Black's characters more often, and even teased (and misled) viewers about them "end[ing] up in a motel room bed together" in the episode "Memento Mori", involving underwear, "handcuffs as well as creamy Twinkies".

The early episodes of season 9 suggest a relationship between Mitchell and Landry's daughter, Dr. Carolyn Lam (Lexa Doig); a scripted romantic subplot in "Avalon" was filmed but was cut for time[31] when the two-parter ran long for over twenty minutes.

[32] Following negative fan reactions to Carter's cancelled leadership within the team (she commanded SG-1 throughout season 8),[33] Browder noted the production difficulties that came with Amanda Tapping's maternity leave, and claimed that new leaders are brought in routinely into units in military reality.

[33] Tapping admitted to also have been "kind of put off" upon learning that someone else would lead SG-1,[32] and hoped that the producers would make SG-1 more of an ensemble team in season 10 by removing the patriarchal line of command.

[13] Browder described Mitchell's early leadership difficulties as "dealing with what are essentially legendary characters within the mythology of the show"; ordering them around would ring false or as hubris from both an audience- and storytelling perspective.

The alien Vala Mal Doran (played by Browder's former Farscape co-star Claudia Black) was re-introduced for a six-episode story arc to cover for the maternity leave of SG-1 regular Amanda Tapping (Lieutenant-Colonel Samantha Carter).

His family, who had been with him in Australia during his Farscape years, stayed in Los Angeles,[19][33] although Browder's children would appear as background characters in "The Ties That Bind" during their set visit.

[33] Several writers, who had been used to Anderson's reduced filming schedule in past seasons, subconsciously diminished Mitchell's role until Cooper reminded them of Browder's full-season contract.

[33] Browder received story credit for his basic pitch for season 10's "Bad Guys", which Stargate Atlantis producer/writer Martin Gero developed into a teleplay.

[48] While some fans were upset that Carter did not resume command of the SG-1 team after her return,[33] Leonard Fischer of The Seattle Times considered Browder and Michael Shanks to have developed "some fun on-screen rapport" by the middle of season 9.

[49] By season 10's "Memento Mori", TV Zone's Anthony Brown felt that "Ben Browder and Claudia Black have [...] reached a point where they can play out an amusing take on Misery without you feeling that [their Farscape characters] have somehow starbursted onto SG-1's Earth".

[50] Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune called Browder and Black's interaction in season 10 "great fun; the rapport they developed on the stellar Farscape was still much in evidence, even though they played radically different characters on SG-1.