After the cancellation of "Baywatch Nights", Mitch continued on the original series, now promoted to Captain. "Nights" was once more alluded to in a tongue-in-cheek manner in the Season 8 episode, "Eel Nino," where an electric eel had been terrorizing beachgoers. When some of the lifeguards (not yet knowing it was an electric eel), speculated that it could be an alien, Mitch, annoyed, told them, "This is not the X-Files." The series then returned to a reasonably more realistic format from that point on.