Plot hole: In the episode 'Backwards' most of the things that happen on 'Backwards Earth' are correct, except, of course, in reverse. But there is an exception: in the scene in the Cafe, when the waitress comes to 'dirty' the table, she tips a box of trash on the table. If you play this scene backwards, the trash leaps from the table into the box. Even on a 'backwards earth' I can't believe that trash spontaneously leaps about... (00:09:30)
Plot hole: The barroom tidy scene in the pub makes absolutely no sense. It is established that this fight started because Lister and the Cat uneat a man's pie, which causes the man to punch Lister, and then the barroom brawl happens, but the events are reversed due to this version of Earth being set in a backwards reality. However, if the events of this fight are put into chronological order, this would mean that Lister uneating the man's pie and being punched by him would have been the last thing to happen during this fight, as it was the first thing to happen in reverse order, and therefore, would also means that there would have been no real reason for the pub patrons would get into a brawl in the first place, as nothing had occurred at that time. (00:23:15)
Plot hole: If everything goes backwards, shouldn't Kryten and Rimmer have got fired, done their job and then got hired? Rimmer & Kryten discovered that everything was backwards in the cafe earlier in the episode. At the club they did their act and then got fired. Put this 'forwards' and it becomes wrong.
Suggested correction: Lister can only see M-Corp products and M-Corp employees. Cat is not an employee of JMC or M-Corp, so he disappears. Lister is the only member of the crew who is employed by M-Corp at this point.
Suggested correction: Cat was a descendant of the cat Lister brought aboard Red Dwarf. Would it be possible that the new owners might have stricter security controls, and Lister was sent to Stasis for a different reason?
Andy Benham ★
Inventing Deux ex machina explanations for a plot hole doesn't make it any less of a plot hole. M-Corp erases all of the Jupiter Mining Corporation's equipment, personnel and infrastructure from Lister's life. In no way is Cat a part of that. He has no connection at all to the Jupiter Mining Corporation, and until he meets him in Episode 1 no connection to Lister, either.
If M-Corp only erased JMC equipment from Lister's life, then Kryten, who belongs to DivaDroid and not the JMC, wouldn't have disappeared either. He disappears as he doesn't belong to M-Corp, not because he belongs to the JMC. Cat has no connection to M-Corp, as he wasn't a part of the JMC (as you pointed out), and is therefore erased for Lister.