You can do anything with story as long as you write it well.
If you know you're not going to be writing it especially well, use the tropes.
One of the problems with US television in the broadcast and early cable age was that all television series were 22-26 episodes long. Another was that after the first air date, viewers would be likely to encounter them out of order.
As a direct result, television series avoided having one episode refer to another. The major exception were soap operas, which often ran 4-6 episodes every week and specifically maintained continuity -- there are/were digest magazines devoted to catching watchers up on current storylines.
If you know you're not going to be writing it especially well, use the tropes.
One of the problems with US television in the broadcast and early cable age was that all television series were 22-26 episodes long. Another was that after the first air date, viewers would be likely to encounter them out of order.
As a direct result, television series avoided having one episode refer to another. The major exception were soap operas, which often ran 4-6 episodes every week and specifically maintained continuity -- there are/were digest magazines devoted to catching watchers up on current storylines.