It turns out, as revealed in the first part of "Making It So: Continuing ST:TNG" (a retrospective documentary that appears on the Blu-ray release of season 2), that this story was originally written for the projected (but never made) "Star Trek: Phase II", with Captain Kirk et al plus three new characters. With the Hollywood writers' strike looming, rather than come up with a new story, "The Child" was revised, with the parts originally written for the new characters of Phase II given to Riker, Troi and Data.
Of course, some new elements were necessary: introducing Dr Pulaski, explaining the decision of Wesley Crusher to remain with the Enterprise, and so on. This would explain many of the complaints in earlier reviews published here: notably that the plot isn't up to the standard of other ST:TNG scripts of the time. Simply put, it's not really a ST:TNG script, but a composite of an older script with new characters transposed into it. And, to my mind, it's done pretty seamlessly.
Review of The Child
