commodoreHUSTLE is a subseries of videos from LRR. It establishes a specific continuity and canon for the self-described "us playing us" videos in the vein of Format War and All The Little People. HUSTLE acts as a kind of "Marvel Ultimate Universe" analogue to any established canon; the writing draws at will from any past videos, but no aspect of LRR canon applies to HUSTLE until a HUSTLE video references it.
There have been three eras of commodoreHUSTLE. The first season (from Laundry to Future) was structured more like a traditional television show and featured both a season long story and longer episodes.
The second era (from Matt Gets His Groove to Giving Up), which coincided with the move to The Escapist, featured shorter, self-contained episodes.
With the move to Moonbase Delta, starting with Beige, the continuity of the show was reset again, allowing new characters such as Ian to be added. Starting in 2018, commodoreHUSTLE episodes were incorporated into LoadingReadyLIVE, with each episode split into several sections. These were used as the opening, middle and closing pre-recorded features between the main segments. The commodoreHUSTLE segments were also uploaded, stitched back together.
Sometimes life throws a problem at you that's too big for you to solve yourself. Sometimes it's a great idea to get a friend to help you with your problem. Sometimes.
In season one's second-last episode, the mystery is finally revealed. Unfortunately, it's still wrapped in an eminga, and the LRR Crew can't even SPELL enimga.
An epilogue to Season 1, to make way for the lulz of the future.
Season 2 (2009-2013)
Season 2 had a shift to a more episodic style for the show with shorter episodes, coinciding with a move to the Escapist. Most of season 2 kept continuity with season 1, but it was always kept quite loose.
He is more meme than man, but we have the technology.
Season 3 (2014-2015)
Season 3 began during the "YRR of LRR", the final season of Weekly LRR Updates. The series moved off the Escapist and once again featured stronger storylines and continuity, although Beej's harrowing experiences with the Meme Stream was practically the only continuity continued from the previous seasons.
A person's home is their castle, but the Moonbase is more like the crew's Temple of Doom.
Season 4 (2016-2017)
With the move to a new Moonbase and a four-month hiatus, there was once again a slight retooling to commodoreHUSTLE although this one was subtler than the last. That said, the storylines from the previous season were all wrapped up by the end of that season, so season 4 once again gets to be a fresh start, and once again continuity with previous seasons is kept to a minimum. The last five episodes of this season are more standalone than the rest, but they do carry directly on from the storyline of season 4; in particular, the events of Coven follow on from Ian's development in earlier episodes.
Cameron and Alex test James' patience and their own capacity for frozen desert treats.
Season 5 (2018-2020)
The series has a soft reboot yet again, and it once again moves its home; although full episodes would be uploaded to LRR's YouTube channel after their debut, each episode would now originate as interstitial segments of LoadingReadyLIVE. Once again, continuity with previous seasons became rare, and some new cast members were incorporated, such as Ben Ulmer.
After a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a Moonbase move, and various other factors, commodoreHustle returned to our screens with the most directly-called-out soft reboot so far (at least from an in-show perspective), although elements, such as the door to the dinosaur past, still stuck around. The intro was also updated to include new crew members such as Wheeler, Matt, and Adam
It's all fun and games until someone clones around.
Trivia
At LRRCon, Graham showed a test reel of what commodoreHUSTLE's original idea was. (Matt had no recollection of filming it.) It was originally a fake documentary in the style of The Office. After filming it, the crew decided it wasn't very good, and went in the current direction with it. Fan opinion of it was that it was pretty funny, but not quite as good as what we actually got.
One reason behind season 5's shift to episodes being incorporated into LoadingReadyLIVE was that it enforced a production schedule of sorts, meaning episodes got produced more regularly. The episodes essentially replaced the more standalone interstitial sketches that were a fixture of the early episodes of LIVE.
Technically speaking, the only actually-defined "season" of Hustle was the first. The early episodes after that first season were tagged as "season 2" by fans, but for a long time, this wiki simply called each year's output from then on a "season". The current split points are based on the major soft reboots and venue changes, as well as on the continuity breakpoints Kathleen once loosely defined at Desert Bus.
The loose and ever-soft-rebooting continuity of Hustle has resulted in some regular castmembers appearing in minor roles before they joined the main cast; Ian Horner and Ben Ulmer are prime examples of this; the former having made a cameo in Free Candy and provided the voice of the Laugh-o-Tron, and the latter having played the writer in the cold open of Retreat.
