Bernard Quatermass Professor Bernard Quatermass was a British scientist . Bernard may have worked alongside Dr Rachel Jensen and Allison Williams in the British Rocket Group in 1963 . ( TV : " Remembrance of the Daleks " ) In May 1997 , paranoid and full of bleak pessimism , he possibly was interviewed by Eve Waugh on television with Patrick Moore regarding the Mars 97 mission . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) UNIT scientific advisor Professor Malcolm Taylor named a unit of measurement after Bernard Quatermass . ( TV : " Planet of the Dead " ) Behind the scenes . Background . Quatermass and the British Rocket Group had originally appeared as the protagonist of a series of four horror - science fiction television serials written by . aired during the 1950s on the BBC ; these were later adapted into by . The last serial , simply entitled , aired on ITV in 1979 . These would have great influence on " Doctor Who " serials such as " The Web of Fear " and " Image of the Fendahl " . " The Lazarus Experiment " in its second half , all but remakes the climax of the end of the first " Quatermass " story . For his part , the creator of Bernard Quatermass , Nigel Kneale , was on record as having hated " Doctor Who " . He refused to write for the programme when invited . Quatermass also inspired " Nightshade " , a television serial in the " Doctor Who " universe . On 2 April 2005 , the BBC aired of " The Quatermass Experiment " , as the original does not survive in its entirety . Appearing in the serial were David Tennant and Indira Varma prior to their appearances as the Tenth Doctor and Suzie Costello , respectively . Mark Gatiss , longtime performer and writer of " Doctor Who " spin - off productions , scriptwriter for the new series and later a guest star in " The Lazarus Experiment " and other episodes , also appeared in the production . In the " Doctor Who " universe . Whether Bernard Quatermass is a real person in the " Doctor Who " universe is very much a matter of opinion , though the British Rocket Group exists in it . " Who Killed Kennedy " mentions several " controversial orbital flights " in the 1950s which imply the events of the first Quatermass serial occurred in the Doctor ' s world as well . At no point in any piece of " Doctor Who " fiction was any character referred to as " Professor Bernard Quatermass " . In " The Dying Days " , a character is announced midway through a sentence as " - ermass " . Subsequently " Professor " and " Bernard " are used to refer to him . In " Remembrance of the Daleks " , his last name is never uttered . And in " Planet of the Dead " , Malcolm Taylor speaks in such a way that he might refer to a fictional person . In the " Doctor Who " universe , the " Nightshade " serials ( PROSE : " Nightshade " ) have many similarities to the " Quatermass " serials . One may assume that because Bernard Quatermass is real , " Nightshade " effectively replaces " Quatermass " in the Doctor Who Universe . It ' s also equally possible to believe that " Nightshade " is just a copy of the existing show , " Quatermass " , as there are many real life instances of two television programmes sharing multiple commonalities . Seven different actors portrayed the character ( including André Morell and Andrew Keir ) , with none considered " definitive " . However Lance Parkin has said that he meant to visualised the elderly , nearly crazed version from the as the one who appeared in the Virgin New Adventures novel " The Dying Days " .