 The role of Quatermass was featured in three influential BBC science fiction serials of the 1950s , and again in a final serial for Thames Television in 1979 . A remake of the first serial appeared on BBC Four in 2005 . The character also appeared in films , on the radio and in print over a fifty @-@ year period . Kneale picked the character 's unusual surname from a London telephone directory , while the first name was in honour of the astronomer Bernard Lovell . 
