Morgan Spurlock, also known as Ronald McDonald’s Darth Vader, makes nutritional, issue-oriented documentaries without making himself an easy target.

To be more direct, he’s no self-aggrandizing, polarizing Michael Moore – not yet at least.

Spurlock is the low-key, 34-year-old everyman whose 30-day, McDonald’s-only diet became famous in the 2004 film “Super Size Me.” It made his heart, his head and just about everything else hurt while he simultaneously developed a love-hate craving for Big Macs, Egg McMuffins and other famed McFoods needing no further introduction.

Now America’s most daringly innovative cable network, FX, is giving him a six-week berth with “30 Days.” Spurlock and his incredibly understanding fiancee, vegan chef Alexandra Jamieson, are front and center only in Wednesday’s one-hour premiere. The other five episodes use surrogates, with Spurlock popping in and out as stage-setter, narrator and occasional interviewer.

He and Alexandra head to Columbus, Ohio, for “Minimum Wage,” which proves to be a much more compelling episode than the following Wednesday’s “Anti-Aging.”

Spurlock, as you might guess, strongly believes that the minimum wage should be substantially increased from $5.15 an hour, where it’s been stuck since 1997.

Morgan and Alexandra show how hard it is to scrape by, even on two incomes. They go to wintertime Columbus with the clothes on their backs and $356.94 in seed money – that’s the combined, after-taxes income of two people working 40 hours a week at minimum wage.

Before finding work, they have to find a place to live. Their eventual home sweet home is a $325-a-month, unfurnished, one-bedroom apartment at The Bottoms.

Morgan Spurlock took on the fast food industry in the documentary Super

“This is a little bit rougher area,” says the landlord. “But you got the hospital right here.”

Lacking a car, they buy a one-month bus pass to get around. Alexandra ends up walking to her new job as a dishwasher and table-buser at a small deli. Morgan rises at pre-dawn to catch a 5:30 a.m. bus to a temp agency, where workers are dispatched to a variety of odd jobs. He sands drywall for a private home owner before taking a landscaping gig that pays a few pennies more per hour.

“Another day, another $44.26,” he says, depositing the money in the couple’s coffee can “bank.”

Morgan hurts his wrist while working, but initially puts off an income-draining hospital visit. Alexandra develops a urinary tract infection and has constant headaches. Both eventually succumb to medical care. And without health insurance, their costs are close to $1,000, including his $40 ace bandage.

“We’re living check to check, and that’s a really scary place to be,” says Morgan, who splurges on Alexandra’s birthday by taking her out to dinner. The $20.13 tab, before tip, seems prohibitive in this context. Maybe they should have gone to McDonald’s.

The “Minimum Wage” episode hits home without using a sledgehammer. Its personalized advocacy approach is effective, instructive and, in its own way, entertaining. But next week’s “Anti-Aging” hour isn’t nearly as involving.

The guinea pig is 35-year-old Scott Bridges, a Los Angeles-based salesman and former member of a college varsity swim team. He’s since gone pudgy and wants to turn back the clock by youthifying and streamlining himself. So for 30 days he’ll receive risky testosterone and human growth hormone injections, swallow a daily array of nutritional supplements and work out with two personal trainers.

Spurlock introduces the episode while pushing an older woman in a wheelchair. “Other cultures value their elders. Here in America we hide ours way,” he says before pushing her away while she feigns fright.

It’s a forced, awkward start. And the experiences of Bridges and his wife, Timona, aren’t much to look at either. After they clash over his new regimen, Spurlock tells viewers, “Many psychologists agree that couples can have problems adjusting to change.”

Well, duh. And many proponents of the lottery say you can’t win if you don’t play.

Bridges finds himself feeling more energetic and dynamic until his liver sends out distress signals and his semen goes bad. It’s a cautionary tale but not one that engenders much empathy.

Future episodes of “30 Days” will show a Christian man immersing himself in the Muslim culture and a mom who binge drinks in hopes that her four children will see the dangers of alcohol abuse.

All in all, it’s a promising concept that so far works better when Spurlock is his own lab rat. That’s asking too much from one guy, though. So let’s see what else happens in his stead.