How do I recover an episode of a tv show if I accidently deleted it from itunes in the cloud?

Question

I recently tried to free up space on my pc, by going into iTunes and deleting episodes of a tv show I watch often & repeatedly, but knowing that I usually download it when needed to give my iPhone/ipad space the rest of the time.
However, somehow I found my self in the purchased section and after hitting the delete cross symbol, I noticed it didn't look like it usually does, so I went  back to check if its was available on ipad or phone and found somehow I had deleted it entirely and could no longer download it!
When I did a separate search on iTunes it did show up that I had purchased the series, except that episode was no longer available to download unless I purchased it again.
I am tempted to press purchase in the hope that iTunes will automatically figure out that I bought it before, but chances are I will get charged again.
I was wondering if anyone else had come across this and if there is a way to switch off deletion from the account, as I wanted to share the account with my family but am having second thoughts if someone does the same thing that I just have.
Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
Ps, I have asked apple support twice with an automated response saying I should get some answer in 24 hours, but perhaps due to high demands of Christmas, I have had no answer this week!
Hopefully something will come up?
Thanks

Answer 1

It sounds like you may have hidden it, in which case you should be able to unhide it : iTunes Store: Hiding and unhiding purchases. (You can't turn off the hiding of items.)
But you should be keeping and maintaining a backup copy of all of your downloads and not relying on being able to redownload them - any item could be removed from the store by the rights-holders at any time, if they do then you won't be able to redownload them (nor will be able to do redownload items if you move countries).