By By Esme Mazzeo, Special to the Chronicle

“One Tree Hill” fans were on the edge of their seats Monday night as the show’s opening scenes displayed the names of the Season seven cast. It seemed impossible that creator Mark Schwan would allow the show to go on without its two main characters, Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) and Peyton (Hillarie Burton). It just would not work, period.
Viewers crossed their fingers that this was all just an elaborate practical joke to generate more interest in the show, hoping that Lucas would jump out onto the court and start playing one-on-one with Nathan, or that Peyton would suddenly appear in the recording booth with Haley to give her opinion on the song being recorded. Sadly, neither of those scenarios took place, making this premiere possibly the most cringe-worthy in the show’s history.
We are reintroduced to Tree Hill 14 months after Peyton and Lucas left it in season six.  Dan Scott (Paul Johansson) appears, to tell us about this time jump and announces that he is in perfectly good health. His location is a mystery at first, but by the final scene it is revealed that he was doing some sort of inspirational speaking, and that’s all there is to say about that. 
We find Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti) in the recording studio (where she always is when there’s no good storyline written for her), Nathan on the basketball court, and Brooke (Sophia Bush) with Jullian (Austin Nichols) on the beach. It’s the NBA post-season, and though Nate had a successful first year, his agent Clay (Robert Buckley) informs him that he is not yet signed to a contract for next season. On the beach, Jullian and Brooke pout about how they never see each other because Jullian is off producing a movie in New Zealand.
Suddenly it’s Jamie’s (Jackson Brundage) birthday (as it always is when the writers are grasping at straws. The highlight of the party is when Jamie opens a present from his uncle Lucas, and reads the card which explains that the box contains a basketball that his own uncle bought him on his seventh birthday.
This is one of two moments where “Tree Hill” history is referenced enough to remind viewers that they are not watching the pilot for a brand new series. The other happens in one of the many beach scenes between Brooke and Jullian, when she bitterly remarks that “people always leave” (a line made famous by Peyton), and she never thought her best friend would be the one to leave her.
Jullian then reveals that he quit the New Zealand movie and he and Brooke can finally be together in Tree Hill. If their conflict had not ended almost before it began, these two had the potential to carry at least half of the season on their own, but I digress.
That’s all you should have learned from the Season seven premiere of “One Tree Hill.”  That is, if you paid close enough attention while simultaneously holding your breath, waiting for the two actors who made the show what it once was to realize the mistake they’ve made and suddenly jump out. Sadly, if the first episode of this season is any indication, “One Tree Hill” will soon only be remembered as the title of a U2 song.
 

From left James Lafferty, Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Galeotti (Photo courtesy of iidaen.files.wordpress.com)