OTH without Lucas and Peyton

So for those of you who don't know I am a huge One Tree Hill fan! And tonight was the season premiere. However, Lucas and Peyton are no longer on the show. They were my favorite on the show and obviously I wanted to see how they explained them leaving, so I watched the show tonight and I am a little ticked cause they don't explain it at all! They just mention them briefly and them leaving but no reason why! And they brought all these new characters in and just threw them in the show like they have been there forever. It was just kind of weird. But even though I'm not too sure about this new OTH without Lucas and Peyton I will continue to watch and hopefully it will be good. And if Nathan really did sleep with that girl I definitely will have to see how that plays out....