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Dexel Dyness was an amoral journalist from an unspecified point in the future, unconcerned about the deaths or suffering of innocent people so long as he got a decent story out of it.
Dynes initially encountered the Fifth Doctor and Peri when they became involved in the search for the legendary treasure of Rovan Cartovall, that had been missing for five thousand years, Dynes having followed the Marquis te Rosscarrino and his niece Arnella, accompanied by Professor Thorrin and his assistant Willis Brockwell, to the planet Gelsandor, where it was believed the treasure was located, Dynes was permitted to record the others as they went on a quest to prove their worthiness to receive the treasure, the Gelsandorans wishing to observe them to better understand humanity. However, at the conclusion of the novel Dynes was left alone on the planet as the others either died or departed on their own, lacking any reason for his time away as the films from his camers had been removed; the Gelsandorans had allowed to observe the hunt, but not to broadcast it for entertainment. (PDA: The Ultimate Treasure)
Some time after this, Dynes managed to find a means of rebuilding his reputation by recording the exploits of Glavis Judd, a tyrannical dictator who subtly took over his home planet before going on to conquer others, defending his actions by claiming that he was acting to 'free' the people of various planets from oppressive leaders (In reality, Judd often created the situations he then set out to 'solve', but Dynes didn't care about that so long as he got a violent story as a result of Judd’s actions). In the end, Judd's expansion was forcibly put on hold when he attempted to 'liberate' the planet of Esselven and the rulers departed before he could capture them, leaving him facing the problem of a safe containing all of the information necessary to successfully run the planet, but he was unable to open the safe without a member of the royal family.
Eventually Judd tracked the Esselven royals to a pleasure planet, only to learn that the Esselvians' attempts to increase their shield strength had caused time behind the shield to flow at five hundred times faster than time outside it, resulting in gnerations having passed for the people inside. Despite Judd's best efforts, the Sixth Doctor and Peri- Dynes wondering if the Doctor had undergone a total body makeover since their last meeting- were able to deal with him and Dynes by tricking him into thinking that the planet was uninhabited, subsequently tricking them into thinking that the palace was about to explode, driving them off while he took a short hop into the future - no more than a few minutes - in the TARDIS.
As Judd and Dynes left the shield, The Doctor quickly manipulated the shield to bring time back into sync with the rest of the galaxy before departing to leave the Esselvians' descendents to re-learn their heritage with the aid of some of the machinery in the palace. As a result, Judd and Dynes found themselves transferred over five hundred years into the future, with Judd learning that his ‘Protectorate’ had collapsed after his departure and he was believed to be only a madman who thought he was Glavis Judd, while Dynes was forced to accept that he was now a forgotten has-been, his sensationalistic, tabloid reporting style literally a thing of the past, and his skills only good for making documentaries about the old days due to his unique insight into the world gone by.