I recieved this response today:
Hello Aaron,
Jon here from the iTunes Store. Shivendra has stepped out of the office, and has asked me to take over their emails.
I understand that you were able to download your purchase of, "Eastern Exposure," but some purchases are missing from your iTunes in the Cloud feature. I can certainly appreciate how eager you must be to have this issue looked into, and I would be more than happy to assist you with this today.
Aaron, thank you for taking interest in the new and exciting feature, iTunes in the Cloud. With iTunes 10.3 or later you can download past app, music, TV show and book purchases without incurring additional charges as long as what you want to download is showing on your Purchased page.
That being said, some content may not be available for download again if its provider no longer offers it on the iTunes Store, App Store or iBookstore. It also can mean if an item has been modified since your original purchase. When items have been modified, customers who have purchased the item before it was modified no longer can redownload that item because the original file has been removed and replaced with a new (modified) version.
If you are not seeing the item in your Purchased list, but you can find the item in the iTunes Store, App Store or iBookstore, then it means it has been modified. If you cannot find the item in the iTunes Store, App Store or iBookstore, it means the item has been removed. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Also, please consider that you may have purchased the items from a different account. To make sure this is not the case, I ask that you review your account's purchase history. This will ensure the items not appearing in your Purchased list were in fact purchased from your account or not. To review your purchase history, please consult the following article:
Seeing your iTunes Store purchase history and order numbers
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2727
Now, I strongly advise that you follow the instructions in these articles. They explain how to create and maintain an up-to-date backup of your iTunes library:
How to back up your media in iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1382
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Please be aware that Apple still strongly encourages its customers to back up their purchases regularly to avoid any lost content that cannot be recovered using iTunes in the Cloud.
I hope this information has been helpful. Thank you very much for being part of the iTunes Store family, Aaron. I hope you have a great day.
Sincerely,
Jon
iTunes Store/Mac App Store Customer Support
_______________
Needless to say this didn't solve the problem and Jon clearly didn't understand the issue so this is how I responded.
Jon,
None of those things are the problem.
I bought the episode on my Apple TV, it froze, I backed out and went to restart the episode (within a span of seconds). Instantly, the episode was no longer available to play, when I went to click "buy" it said I had already bought the episode. When I checked in my purchase episodes (in the cloud) it did not show up, but it showed up in my purchase history (within my account).
I could not download it because it was not available to download.
Additionally, I purchased a season pass of Fringe (before I updated my Apple TV) the episodes released before the update show up, but after the update they are not showing up as purchased and the option to purchase a season pass is back. When I click it - it says, "you've already bought a season pass would you like to buy it again."
So, this is a specific problem between Apple TV (since the latest update) and iTunes in the Cloud.
This is not just a problem that I am having either - there a forum on the Apple Support Community that is blowing up with other customers experiencing the same problem.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3389813?answerId=16447884022#16447884022
There are tons of Apple TV users experiencing the same issue. Entire Season passes are no longer showing up on their Apple TV's.
You can purchase a show via the iTunes store on a Mac, then go to your Apple TV and it's not there. You can purchase an episode in Apple TV and it won't remember you bought it and it won't show up in your purchase history in iTunes.
You guys need to address this from a system-wide standpoint. The added functionality of being able to play my purchased TV Shows straight from the cloud was a very welcome addition. Since the latest update that functionality has disappeared. The cloud is doing the opposite of what it is supposed to do.