Twenty-eight-year-old Elle Fanning has been nominated for an Academy Award (Sentimental Value) and a Primetime Emmy (The Great) and has co-headlined a Disney flick that grossed three-quarters of a billion dollars (Maleficent). Yet, the role with which I instinctively associate her is her work as a backyard film “star” in J.J. Abrams’s 2011 thriller, Super 8. There, cast as the plucky child of troubled parents, the then-13-year-old was utterly convincing as a young woman on the brink of possibility or disaster. Though the timeline doesn’t quite fit, a grown-up version of that character could easily be the lead of Apple TV’s winning new show.  Margo’s Got Money Troubles stars Fanning as Margo Millet, a doe-eyed coed lured into bed by predatory English prof Mark Gable (Michael Angarano). Seduced, like millions before her, by her lover’s bad poetry (“We are a hungry sheep on a green plane”), Margo falls helplessly into an affair, an assignation that eventually leaves her pregnant, broke, and banished from California’s Fullerton College. How this happens in the age of the Title IX office and the student-development Karen is never quite clear. Mark’s idea of discretion is to close his office blinds when Margo visits. Nonetheless, by the end of the first episode, Margo is possessed of a squalling babe with no means to support him. As a doleful Mark observes during a later exchange, “This has become very real.” Audiences have been here before, of course, most notably in Jason Reitman’s much-loved tale of teenage motherhood, Juno (2007). Like its predecessor, Apple’s latest is unabashedly pro-life, framing as villains both Margo’s abortion-mongering friends and the male feminists for whom “a woman’s choice” means relief from fatherly obligations. But the show is also realistic. At home with a colicky infant, Margo has no one on whom to rely but her comically narcissistic mother, Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer). By the time the second episode ends, even veteran parents will be cringing as they recall those early days of feeding, crying, blithely consolatory doctors, and despair.  Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer in “Margo’s Got Money Troubles.” (Carl Herse/Apple TV) Accompanying and driving these contradictions is some legitimately fine TV writing. “I don’t need to analyze you; I know you,” a friend tells Margo in one of the show’s many psychologically astute moments. “He’s tender and thoughtful and sweet,” our heroine boasts of her lover, “and he writes beautiful emails.” I have quoted already from Mark’s insipid verse, but the wise viewer will hit pause and read the whole dismal composition, a small masterpiece of MFA-program banality. As for the show’s earthier lines, could anyone improve upon Margo’s lament that the baby “just spits [my nipples] out with such vicious contempt”? The mothers in my life assure me that the joke gets very close to the truth.  As the series proceeds, two plot developments arise to carry us into novel territory. The first is the arrival of “Jinx” (Nick Offerman), Margo’s absent father and a former World Wrestling Entertainment champion. Fresh from prescription-drug rehab, Jinx moves in with Margo and her roommate (Thaddea Graham), taking up the role of babysitter, housemaid, and friend. The second is Margo’s discovery of OnlyFans, the subscription-based website currently turning scores of young American women into pornographers. At the risk of sounding the understatement of the year, some readers of this magazine will disapprove of Margo’s flight into “sex work.” I eagerly join you! Yet, Margo’s nemeses are so phony — her “cosplay”-inflected videos are so weird — that one is tempted to overlook the error. “You simulate sex acts with space aliens,” an aggrieved Mark complains during a mid-season custody hearing. Well, yes. And you, sir, sell literature degrees financed by student loans. Which one of us is perfect?  HONEY, I SHRUNK WOMEN’S RIGHTS None of this would work were Margo’s Got Money Troubles not anchored by so charming a lead. As the title character, Fanning delivers at least as good a performance here as she did in Super 8, crafting a young heroine at once vulnerable and optimistic, frazzled and cocksure. Faced with seemingly endless hurdles, Margo never loses sight of the blessing with which she has, however inconveniently, been bestowed. While other cast members are more than solid, particularly Greg Kinnear as Shyanne’s sweetly unsophisticated boyfriend, Kenny, the series belongs to its star. Fanning already had a bright future ahead of her, but after this triumph, her performances will be worth actively seeking out.  A word, finally, about perspective. Watching its trailers, I expected Margo’s Got Money Troubles to be a tone-deaf take on blue-collar Americans from writers who have never met one. Instead, the show’s satire is sharp but affectionate, a poke in the ribs informed by real familiarity if not love. Visiting Kenny’s church, we see a cross stained with bird poop and learn that the youth group recently staged a production of Rent. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you mainline Protestantism. Following white working-class trends, Margo christens her newborn Bodhi (pronounced “Bodie”). To borrow a joke from my favorite subreddit, that name is a tragedeigh. If the majority of its characters weren’t so likable, the series might have seemed cruel: another entry in a long line of “look-at-these-rubes” programming. Because the characters are so appealing, the show comes across as nervy and heartfelt. That it serves up enough real laughs to keep audiences entertained is further cause for joy. It’s the best new comedy of the year.Graham Hillard is the TV critic for the Washington Examiner magazine.