Tedious but mostly not boring.
Tedious for reasons other than why it makes good TV.
No, I mean tedious of the boring variety.
There's nothing very exciting about a day at the hospital or a day on patrol.
Yeah, you get to have some nice interactions now and then, but if you filmed the actual day to day life it would be like watching paint dry.
That wasn't a problem in the past. Besides, nothing more boring than being a regular cop, lawyer, doctor etc.
It's the treatment that makes it look exciting, not the patrolling around for 8 hours and eating doughnuts reality of being a cop.
And you wouldn't believe how tedious being a doctor is, either in a private practice or at a hospital.
Nothing like ER or House at all -- it's the social interactions and plot scripts that make it all interesting, not the actual real life jobs.