Dr. Christian Shephard is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by John Terry.

Christian died of an alcohol-induced heart attack days before the flight, leading to much of his story being told through flashbacks.

In the sixth season, the Man in Black (Titus Welliver/Terry O'Quinn) admitted that he had "impersonated" Christian during the first week after the crash of Flight 815.

The two have a brief relationship before she returned to her home country, and later she gives birth to Christian's daughter, Claire (Emilie de Ravin).

Carole and her sister, Lindsey (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick), do not approve of him juggling time between two families, which leads to Christian being told he is no longer allowed to visit.

[4] When he learns Carole has been in a car accident, Christian travels to Australia and pays for the medical treatment to keep her alive.

The two agree to travel to Australia together under different aliases; Ana Lucia names him "Tom", and Christian calls her "Sarah".

A funeral service was arranged back in LA, but Jack has trouble clearing Christian's coffin onto the doomed plane.

[10] Locke (Terry O'Quinn), a fellow crash survivor, refers to Jack's hallucinations as the "white rabbit" and convinces him to follow them.

[1] Months later, when Hurley (Jorge Garcia) stumbles upon Jacob's cabin in the jungle he looks through the window and observes Christian in a rocking chair.

[11] When Claire wakes up one night while returning to the beach with Miles Straume (Ken Leung) and Sawyer, she sees Christian rocking his grandson, Aaron.

Christian gives Locke additional instructions on what to do when he moves the wheel, including how to contact Eloise Hawking.

In the series finale, Jack meets Christian again in what is believed to be an alternate timeline in which Oceanic flight 815 never crashed, and in which many characters regain memories of their original island lives.

However, in one of the show's final scenes, Jack encounters his father in a church, where he realizes that everyone in the "alternate timeline" is actually dead, in an afterlife constructed by the survivors in an unknown fashion so they could be with the people most important to them before "moving on" together.

Jack finally makes amends with his father and, as the various characters seat themselves in the church pews, Christian exits through the front door, filling the room with a bright light.

Jack's difficulties getting on with his father are the first instance of this, with many other characters such as Locke,[16] Hurley[17] and Kate[18] also having difficult relationships with their dads.

[19] Erin Martell of TV Squad pondered that Christian's appearance is "like the Yemi apparition that turned into the Smoke Monster".

[20] Alan Sepinwall notes Christian holds Aaron, thus making him corporeal, but wondered about the significance of Miles seeing him.

Oscar Dahl commented "I still don't think that Jacob is Christian Shepherd [sic] or anything like that"[23] Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen calls him "Ghost Dad".

[31] Digital Spy's Ben Rawson-Jones described it as "a pleasure" when Christian returned in the second half of season 4, adding "John Terry is superb".