Trouble with Playing Rental Movies from iTunes

I rented a movie on iTunes (on my apple TV). It started to play after about 5 minutes, no problem. Then after about 50 minutes, I went into Menu, by mistake while trying to pause the movie.... That's it.... cant get back to the movie afer that.

The movie was no where to be found. When i searched again and found the movie, it allowed me to rent it again - on selecting play option, it said movie already rented but not download and to 'download' it go into Menu>iTunes Store>Check for Rentals.

I do that and it just seems to go on endlesslu without anything happening.

Why cant i just play the movie again?

Any suggestions please