It was aswome when I heard: " Eustace! Jill Pole is here to see you! " I was like, shaking my mom and screaming: " Mom! Did you hear! She said Jill Pole! Jill Pole! Mom! Listen to me! JILL POLE! " And I spent the whole week thinking about SC and Jill Pole, the girl who would play her, when the auditions would come out, should I audition, how does she look, etc.

I got the thrill inside. I think it was nice. I do hope they'll figure out how to make SC work w/ it. Don't worry, they'll find a way. But please, don't pretend it never happened! I hate discontinuity! It'd be better to have some change then discontinuity! (in my opinion)

I thought it was random and pointless. A nod to the book fans, but no real reason for it. Honestly, Alberta could have said anything at that point in the story, why did they choose to have her mention Jill? It just doesn't make sense to me. I can see the logic in supposing that the Poles and Scrubbs mixed socially (after all, they sent their children to the same school), but if all of the Poles came over for a visit why would Alberta mention Jill specifically? The potential ramifications of this could be disastrous for Jill and Eustace's relationship in SC.

Here is one scenario. Maybe the Poles came to visit, and the parents wanted to talk so they told Jill to go up to Eustace's room and then called up to him that "Jill Pole is here to see you" to let him know that she is coming up.
Anyway I can think of a few reasons why she might have been visiting without them being friends. Hopefully they won't make it that they are friends already if they do make SC.

The name-drop is pretty interesting. I know I haven't read SC but I know who Jill Pole is. When I heard her name, I was like "Ooooo, I heard Jill Pole!"

I didn't like it. I mean, it was a nice nod to fans but it was unneeded and irrelivent and will mean that the SC story line will be slightly changed already. this isn't the biggest issue for me but it was irritating, although i can empathise with the small seat spasm/ who will play her-will I have a chance to audition.../pulse increase feeling that other people were talking about. But in a way this is worse becasue it just makes me want SC more and if it itsn't made then every time I watch VDT I will be thinking 'what if?' even in 50 years+

(Oh, and you can add me to the 90% of the fanbase aswell )

No one can really tell what they'll do with the name drop until they actually make SC. I personally would have no qualms at all if they did some discontinuity and pretended it never happened because they have bigger discontinuities to worry about, i.e. Will P. looking/and being older than book Eustace---so they'll have to creatively write around that....

I think they can easily continue the reason for the name-drop for SC. Really, we still don't know much about why Jill would go there in the first place, so I'd rather have an explanation than not. Although I'm not worried about Will's looks or age, there is obviously a few issues they'll have to work on (such as the green mist ), so I think this is a minor one to do. But I don't think this is a case where they need to hide it, like Suspian (no offense, Suspian lovers! ). So, I may be the only one, but I love the name drop (besides the fact that I'm not sure of a lot of things about it), and I really want a better understanding of it.

For the same reason I keep saying over and over again. Just because it is the holidays doesn't mean you don't get homework. You usually do. War or no war.

Sorry but this reason doesn't work. If it was a term holiday, yes, there would be homework, assignments, study for tests, etc. But this is the summer, and the children would have finished their work for the year, and would be returning for a new year with a new timetable of teachers, classrooms, books and activities.
The only kids working on school work over the holidays would be like Peter having a tutor to help him with big exams he faces in the next year, or going to a crammer school to help work on maths,etc.
In my secondary/high school days, we didn't usually have the same teacher for a subject two years running. Even in a small boarding school where they did have the same teacher, I am sure there would not be set homework - perhaps suggestions of books to read over the summer.
So I don't see this as a reason for Jill and Eustace to see each other.

Yes, you are quite right. Summer holidays are the end of the academic year and the start of the new one.

And so, wherever Eustace and Jill might be, and from time immemorial it is a time for people to get their end of year reports, exam results, new enrolments and notification of what the next school year holds for them. Including book lists, uniform requirements etc, and the date school is due to commence. I have good reason to know that even if the students are on summer holidays, school administrative staff can still be hard at work, well before the end of the holidays, which is why I was mean enough to suggest holiday homework. (where's that devil emoticon when I need it?).

And I am just as sure that even if it is only during the fortnight before school is due to start, that the same would have been just as true in UK at high school level, at any rate. Besides, reading books = homework in summer holidays. Question is, which ones? And who has the right sort of school books at his touch for Geography and Science? Our Eustace. That is, if he is prepared to lend them. Excellent reason for a name-dropping visit, don't you think?

Or maybe she needs to return something she borrowed from Eustace from last term? Of course that only works if they not only knew each other from the previous term, but also if their families mixed socially. There is also the practicality of passing down outgrown uniform items, especially any that can be worn by either sex, like blazers, jumpers (sweaters to USA students) or children's shirts, books that can be passed down to people in the year below. I always assumed that Eustace and Jill were the same age and in the same class at school, but there is no reason why she can't be a year younger than he is, and still know him from being at school the term beforehand.

I hope Jill, having forgotten her book list, or whatever she forgot, won't forget to return anything she borrows on the name-drop occasion.

In my high school, we are assigned homework over the summer that will be graded by our teachers in the upcoming year. This is how they could get together...

Interesting. It definitely wouldn't work that way in Australia because our Summer holidays are at the end of the school year.

Har de Har! Har! Just because in Australia we get a definite Public holiday break for much of Christmas/New Year doesn't mean we don't have to go back to work after New Years' Day holiday, Summer holidays or no Summer holidays. I went back to work January 10th.

I'd imagine high school admin staff return to work by the time the back-to-school specials come out in the shops, about mid-January, certainly before the Australia Day public holiday. By that time they would be dealing with the usual run of 'what happened to my school results for last year?', 'the dog ate my missing assignments, that I should have handed in last December', not to mention overdue library books, late enrolments etc. Even in Australia it would be feasible for Jill Pole to be visiting Eustace because of school matters, homework etc. Especially if it was only reading.

But getting back to the name-drop, I took it as a hint that the next film to be done would be Silver Chair. But now it seems from today's news that it could be Magician's Nephew next.

@Trufflehunter, what a mean lot of teachers! In NZ as soon as school finished we were off - and apart from choosing our subjects for the following year we were free until the day we came back in to get our textbooks issued.

@Warrior - it's the same in the northern hemisphere - they finish school in July, go on summer holiday, and start the new school year in early September. Odd, but that's normal for them (I taught there for a most of two years). The real difference is that they get Christmas holidays without the end of school year fuss, which is a lot nicer.

@wagga - having been a teacher I recall having up to a week's real break in term holidays (to rest, do shopping, medical appointments etc), and about three weeks of the summer break before starting preparations.

@Coracle: Which means in UK terms you still have to go back to school somewhere in mid August if not sooner. Well before the late August/early September date when I think UK schools resume. And at least in UK you don't have 1 week of your three weeks' summer vacation taken up by Christmas/New Year. I don't know what they do in New Zealand for summer holidays, especially as you have different public holidays. But our schools officially start back after the 26th January, which is Australia Day.

Getting back to the namedrop and it being a hint of an SC movie, what do you think of the news that SC might possibly not be made at all? And I had such a marvellous idea of having Jill and Eustace come back at the end of SC to be interviewed by a new headmaster in his office where there is a certain wardrobe ....

I thought that would be a good lead into MN, you see. How could MN be blended in with the ending of VDT? And was that namedrop a waste of time?

Wagga, I realise that. I was referring to the holidays in terms of school holidays in Australia for school students (since we were discussing Eustace and Jill and not the dodgy Headmaster of Experiment House).

Thanks Coracle. I can't get my head around that concept of starting the school year at a different time. I'm just so used to the Christmas and Summer holidays being linked.