`30 DAYS' GOES BEYOND BIG MACS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

Morgan Spurlock is Michael Moore with the hard edges of Moore's politics rounded off and the rounded contours of Moore's physique chiseled more finely.

Spurlock's first film, a documentary indictment of fast-food culture titled ``Super Size Me,'' was both a box- office hit and an Oscar nominee. Spurlock's political views are likely as similarly progressive as Moore's, but he's more genial and less insistent - and even more populist - while offering them.

``30 Days,'' Spurlock's new TV docu-series for the famously conservative Rupert Murdoch's FX network (notice that no liberals offered him such a high-profile outlet), offers reality TV with a conscience, populist television with a built-in audience. Spurlock's sometimes-oddball investigations don't simply have social commentary in mind but humor - and compelling human drama.

Tonight's premiere episode offers a scathing, articulate indictment against the low level of the federal minimum wage. Spurlock and his fiancee, Alex Jamieson (who railed humorously against his fast-food-induced-diminished sex drive in ``Super Size Me'') journey to a small Ohio town and attempt to subsist for a mere month on minimum-wage jobs.

It's a gambit attempted by Barbara Ehrenreich in her convincing book, ``Nickel and Dimed,'' and it would've been nice if Spurlock credited her with the idea.

He doesn't, but the outcome is the same: There are too many exigencies preventing Americans living on the razor's-edge of minimum-wage income from prevailing: Health problems (not covered by employers), crummy living conditions (Spurlock and Jamieson are besieged by insects in an apartment that, the night before they rented it, was a crack house), and children (Spurlock's brother's kids witness a seething financial debate between him and Alex over two 60-cent buns).

Future episodes go in diverse directions. Next week, Spurlock delves into ``Penn & Teller: Bulls--t!'' territory when one of his charges attempts, fairly disastrously, to reverse the aging process with a battery of pills, shots, steroids and myopic personal trainers.

Following that is a can't-we-all-get-along installment that Spurlock's man-on-the-street interviews prove is utterly necessary at this point in time: A sincere Christian spends a month with American Muslims, learning something of their current level of oppression.

As preachy as all this may seem, it's not. Spurlock endeavors greatly to maintain a measure of every-guy-ness and does so with an easygoing, never-strident approach to his material. His concerns aren't so much political as populist - who doesn't think our lowest wage-earners deserve more? Who doesn't hope for a rapprochement between Christians and Muslims? Who doesn't want our citizens free from polluting chemicals?

Spurlock - with a wry and utter lack of pretension - offers simple, stupefyingly entertaining solutions to vexing problems. Who was the last person you knew who fit that political profile?

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

30 DAYS - Four stars

What: Morgan Spurlock and his subjects attempt other 30-day experiments much like the fast-food binge in his Oscar-nominated ``Super Size Me.''

Where: FX.

When: 10 and 11 tonight; also 9 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Sunday; through July 20.

In a nutshell: Spurlock's easygoing sensibility makes his valuable social commentary entertainingly accessible.

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Photo:

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock journeys to a small Ohio town and attempts to subsist for a month on minimum-wage jobs in his new docu-series, ``30 Days.''