Maggie - The First Lady (ITV1); Lionheart - The Crusade (C4)

What do we really know about her?," asked the narrator at the start of this four-part TV biography of Margaret Thatcher. By the end of the hour, we didn't know much more than when we started.

This appears to be a straightforward profile, made without the benefit of any new Maggie footage (although the old allows you to view a series of hilarious hairstyles).

We learnt she was "pretty bossy", that Bill Deedes took an intense dislike to her from their first acquaintance, that she played an angel in a school nativity play, and at university was "more like a woman of 40 than a girl of 18".

Perhaps later on, the series will elaborate on her place in history as a woman who succeeded in what was essentially a male-dominated political world when she was first elected MP for Finchley in 1959. She was one of just 25 women and, at 33, the youngest.

This opening instalment told us that her ideas and attitudes were shaped by her father, a grocer and local councillor in Grantham. We also found out that having fun wasn't one of her priorities. She was a serious girl who studied hard at school, egged on by her father.

At university in Oxford too, her life was about work not play. She found making friends hard and put her energies into the student Conservative Association.

Once she decided to become an MP, there were signs she found her background an embarrassment, envious of people who had had a different sort of upbringing.

I'd have liked to have heard more about her courtship by divorce Denis Thatcher, a local businessman and Conservative supporter who gave her a lift home from a meeting after she missed the last train. They seemed an unlikely match - he was "something of a man about town" and she was a girl from a strict, joyless upbringing.

Unfortunately, details of their romance was glossed over. Before you could say "this lady's not for turning", she'd had twins. We left Maggie taking her seat in Parliament, where the cut and thrust of debate was rather different to the cut and thrust of the bloody battles of the Crusades featured in Lionheart.

The documentary had undergone a title change, from Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, to Lionheart - The Crusade between preview tape and transmission. A pity because the story was about both men, two of the greatest generals of their era at a time when a leader was judged not by his debating skills but his ability as a warrior.

This was a very thorough recreation, complete with battle scenes, of the religious wars. Interesting to find that King Richard only took charge of the Third Crusade after the original leader fell off his horse and drowned crossing a river.

There was one hilarious moment as the possibility of Richard being gay was discussed. Yes, one historian admitted, he had shared a bed with King Philip of French. But this was a fairly common occurrence and, besides, he was only displaying a diplomatic unity. I've heard it called a lot of things but never that.