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Anita Van Buren | |
---|---|
Law & Order character | |
First appearance | "Sweeps" |
Last appearance | "Rubber Room" |
Portrayed by | S. Epatha Merkerson |
In-universe information | |
Family | Donald Van Buren (ex-husband) Ric Van Buren (son) Stefan Van Buren (son) Frank Gibson (fiancée) Unnamed sister |
Seasons | 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 |
Anita Van Buren is a fictional character on NBC's long-running police procedural and legal drama television series Law & Order, portrayed by S. Epatha Merkerson. The character of Van Buren was an "authoritative lieutenant"[1] in the New York Police Department, who supervised teams of detectives who worked out in the field, and originally served as "commander of the 27th Precinct Detective Squad."[2] The fictional Van Buren achieved the rank of NYPD lieutenant before any actual policewoman in New York did so, creating a "dissonance" with reality.[3] Van Buren appeared in 390 episodes of Law & Order. When she crossed the 300-episode mark in 2008, Lt. Van Buren became the longest-running African-American character in television history.[4]
In 1997, it was noted that "Van Buren was one of the first and is still one of the few female African-American characters in network television to hold a position of power standing over the desks of white professional men telling them how to do their jobs."[5] The Associated Press once described Van Buren as a character with typically "limited screen time...whose practical function is to point her detectives in the story's next direction."[6] After many years on the procedural drama, Merkerson was "rewarded with a personal crisis for her character—a life-threatening bout with cervical cancer—that gave her some fine, if fleeting, opportunities to show Van Buren's rarely glimpsed vulnerability."[7] Van Buren's role in the franchise is considered a precursor to Olivia Benson's centrality in the SVU series.[8]
By episode count, she was the longest-running character on the original show during its original run; Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) surpassed her during its revival. Van Buren appeared in 392 episodes within the franchise (390 of Law & Order, the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Badge" and the Law & Order: Trial by Jury episode "Skeleton") and Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, and is the fifth longest-running regular character in the Law & Order franchise, behind Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Fin Tutuola (Ice-T), McCoy, and Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), and the sixth longest-running character in the Law & Order universe, behind Benson (478 episodes in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), Tutuola (456 episodes in SVU), McCoy (408 episodes in the universe, including two in Homicide: Life on the Street), Cragen (400 episodes in the franchise), and John Munch (Richard Belzer) (452 episodes in the universe, including 122 in Homicide: Life on the Street).
TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz called the season-five Law & Order character lineup (featuring Van Buren, McCoy, Mike Logan, Lennie Briscoe, Claire Kincaid and Adam Schiff) the single-best character combination in the Law & Order universe, dubbing them "the '27 Yankees of L&O casts, featuring not only Hall of Famers at every position but the very best example of each respective role in the franchise's history."[9] A textbook on management of state and municipal police departments described Anita Van Buren as a "good example of an operational supervisor as a strong leader...Nothing seems to get by her. When [detectives] cross the line of legality, she steps in to put them in their place. The operational supervisor must know their subordinates well; they must be present not only in spirit but in body and mind."[10]