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"The design and home improvement shows on T.V. cause us so much headache and heartburn," said Jim Grosspietsch, who co-owns and operates a $2 million-a-year interior design firm in Chicago.

On the "HGTV-type shows," he continued, designers often "redesign entire rooms or floors for homeowners, complete with space plans, elevations, color renderings, furniture selections, accessory selections and the like… and then present those plans and selections before they have been hired or paid."

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Not so in the real world, he said, where "we are hired first based on past project work and we collect a retainer up front before we design anything."

Oh, and that $500 to $1,000 living room renovation you were expecting in 48 hours? Complete fiction.

"A 'typical' project really takes four or eight or 12 months," Grosspietsch said. In fact, just waiting for the new sofa to arrive can take two months.

And as for cost, T.V. viewers might want to add a couple of zeroes to the price tag to bring their expectations in line with reality.

'I'm a Doctor, Not a Miracle Worker!'

But it's not just interior designers who find themselves having to reset client expectations about how long it takes to get the job done (hint: it's much longer than an hour). It's also professional organizers, charity event planners, doctors, lawyers and criminal investigators.

In courtroom dramas, there is always "a lawsuit against a huge corporation that settles for millions by the end of the hour with no one aging a moment," said Bethany LaFlam, an attorney in Newport Beach, Calif. "In real life, it would likely take years to get a settlement of that magnitude finalized, and collecting on it is a whole other matter."

Then there's the tricky business of government budgets, which never seem to run out on T.V.

"The shows make it look like we have unlimited time and resources and all the personnel in the lab or medical examiner's office are allowed to concentrate all of their efforts on a single case," said forensic anthropologist Lenore Barbian, who worked extensively on identifying victims at the United 93 crash site after 9/11.