Quarantine - S5-E4
Visible crew/equipment: When Rimmer asks the crew if they had forgotten Red Dwarf could only sustain one hologram, it shows a shot of the rest of the crew who say nothing. At the top of the screen, a boom mic can be seen. (00:03:00)
Quarantine - S5-E4
Visible crew/equipment: When Lister wipes down the biohazard cabinet, a boom mic can be seen in the top right of the screen. Also, just before the camera moves past the pillar, the entire microphone and arm can be glimpsed. (00:05:00)
Quarantine - S5-E4
Visible crew/equipment: When the Cat tries to attack Rimmer in Quarantine, a boom mic can be seen at the top of the screen. (00:16:45)
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.